Love, Free as Air
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: SSHPDM slash. Harry, trapped in his Animagus form, stumbles upon Draco and Snape, who are trapped in a decaying relationship. All three of them will have to become more human. COMPLETE.
1. On Singed Wings

**Title: **Love, Free As Air

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Warnings: **Sex, angst, profanity, a bit of violence. Ignores the epilogue of DH.

**Pairings: **Snape/Harry/Draco.

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Trapped in his Animagus form, Harry stumbles on Snape and Draco, who disappeared from the wizarding world years ago. His first task is to become human again. His second might be to help Snape and Draco with the same problem.

**Author's Notes: **This story is being written for heeroluva, who won a charity auction at gulf_aid_now to raise money for the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. She gave me the plot, for which I thank her. I'm not sure how long this story will be, though I estimate somewhere between 15 and 20 chapters. The title comes from a quote by Alexander Pope.

**Love, Free As Air**

_Chapter One—On Singed Wings_

There was too much smoke and confusion for Harry to chance changing back. He accepted his fate with a bob of his head and made for the nearest window, intending to get outside and then transform so that he could look back on the destruction and salvage what memories he could to give to the Aurors.

The sting of a spell across his tail was almost intangible until it suddenly blossomed and wrapped his body in pain. Harry screamed and flared his tail out, but of course there was nothing there now. The wizard who had cast the curse might already have fled or succumbed to smoke inhalation.

_And you'll do the same thing if you don't get out of here _right now.

Harry flung himself upwards into the noise of roars and bellows and neighs and screeches, and then found the window he'd been looking for. Up and up and up, as the wind boosted his tail and lent strength to his wings.

* * *

"Go outside if you cannot sit still."

Severus had spoken the words an hour ago, but they still echoed in Draco's head. He winced and leaned back against the stone wall of the garden, looking around in a desperate effort to cheer himself up.

He saw nothing but the same familiar herbs, bushes, and vines that Severus had planted to serve as his ingredients. They'd had flowers the first year—though of course never as beautiful as the rose gardens at the Manor—but Severus had refused to have any the next, stating that petals were useful in few potions. Draco had admired Severus's stern self-denial at that point, and had thought he was childish, himself, in wishing for a few bright blossoms, so he'd agreed.

Now he knew it wasn't self-denial. Severus simply didn't care about beautiful things, and never would if he wasn't forced to.

Draco closed his eyes. He began the familiar litany of excuses that would soften his resentment against Severus.

_You knew when you came with him that he wasn't rich. He warned you that he wasn't a pleasant man to be around, and only cared about potions. You can't say that he lied. You could have left when you found out that he wasn't your perfect dream mentor. You were the one who tricked yourself into thinking his every word was wise._

But that litany hadn't worked for some time, not unless Draco repeated it for hours and wore himself into agreement with Severus through sheer weariness. Yes, Severus had told the truth, but he also had been able to see, _had _to have seen, the hero-worship shining in Draco's face, and he'd done nothing to discourage Draco's impressions of his activities during the war or during his trial.

_He could have said that he really didn't love or care for anyone, that he only cared about himself, that he'd never had human warmth and didn't miss it, _Draco thought, opening his eyes and staring at a clump of morning glory vines that Severus had trained to grow along a trellis placed against the wall. _I gave him plenty of opportunity to say that. Instead, he smiled at me with this dark glint in his eyes and hinted that maybe I was the one who could teach him love._

Draco snorted. _What a fucking joke. He's devoted himself to abstract ideals like pride and skill for so long that he probably wouldn't recognize love if it fell out of the sky and landed at his feet._

A sharp crashing noise in the nearest tree startled him. Draco looked up and blinked, then rose to his feet when the crashing didn't stop. Angry birds sometimes battled for the fruit on the high trees that Severus had planted, but they went away after one sting of the guardian wards around the tree trunks. Perhaps this was a more stubborn or desperate bird than usual. They were getting into late summer, and Draco thought he vaguely remembered some birds reared a second brood then or something.

At the very least, it was a diversion from his thoughts and his absolute lack of any occupation.

_How sad, _Draco thought as he walked along the curving stone path to the back of the garden and the source of the sound, _that this has become my life._

* * *

Harry raised his head and shook it in a daze. He already knew that something was wrong. He did his best to control the instincts of his Animagus form and stop thrashing with his wings against the invisible net that held him so that he could number all his problems.

First, he had aimed at the nearest source of powerful magic, thinking it would be the encampment of Aurors who were waiting for his report. But either they had left or he had been carried further by the kidnappers than he had expected. This place had its own wards that he had pierced with several jabs of his beak, but from inside, it was not the camp—unless they had managed to build stone walls and plant an extensive garden overnight.

Second, the spell one of his captors had cast at him as he escaped was causing random flares of pain throughout his body. Wherever this place was, Harry thought he'd have to stay for a while. He couldn't fly if he was burning with agony.

Third, the spell had another effect, the one Harry had feared it did. When he found himself within a net of air and magic, he had tried instinctively to change back. The transformation would have ruptured the spells meant to contain an animal and he'd have fallen to the ground. Not very dignified, of course, but at least it would mean that he could get help from whatever wizards these were.

But he _couldn't _change back.

Not surprising, since the kidnappers he'd been investigating were highly skilled in Transfiguration, and had been snatching wizards—especially wizarding children—for months and changing them into rare and expensive animals to sell. It made sense that they would have developed a spell that would keep anyone from reverting to their human form, whether by accident or accidental magic.

But it was inconvenient as all _fuck _right now.

Footsteps sounded below. Harry twisted his head. With luck, this was a wizard now, and he would be able to explain the situation as soon as they got him out of the net, even if he couldn't change back. There were advantages to being the specific kind of bird he was.

He almost changed his mind when he saw the pale face peering up at him from below. It had been six years, but he hadn't forgotten what Draco Malfoy looked like. If nothing else, the posters in the Auror Department that showed his face and promised a reward for information on him would have reminded Harry. Malfoy had fled on the eve of his own trial, and helped the condemned criminal Severus Snape to escape as well.

It didn't matter that Harry hadn't agreed with the Wizengamot's conviction of Snape or its probable conviction of Malfoy. The _point_ was that there was such a thing as the law, and running away from it solved nothing in the long run.

Now, swaying in the net, Harry had to wonder whether it wouldn't be to his advantage to keep quiet and try to find someone else to change him back. He really only needed the spell stopped and his wounds healed, and a few days to recover. Then he could take to the sky again.

In fact, that was so much the best course that Harry was sort of impressed with himself for thinking of it. He usually wasn't very sensible. He kept still and silent except for a few involuntary flaps as Malfoy studied him. His form could hang upside-down without trouble, but that was under its _own _power and not hanging from meshes he couldn't see in the midst of the air.

* * *

Draco stared.

The bird above him was the size of a small crow, or so Draco thought. It kept moving just when he had his eyes focused on it. But its feathers were grey, and stood out around its body so much that Draco thought it might actually be bigger than it looked, or smaller.

_Ash-_grey. That was an unusual color for birds, Draco thought. He'd seen doves that were near it, but this wasn't a dove. Apart from anything else, it had a bright red spot on its tail. And it was screaming in a manner that made Draco wince. Any dove that had a voice like that would get pecked to death by all the other doves around it.

_A hawk?_

The feet, when Draco could see them—the bird was head-down in the net that Severus had set up for thieves that didn't learn the first time—did look like talons. It might be a hawk.

Draco raised his wand and cast the spell that would cut the net and bring the bird down still tangled up in it. He didn't want those talons and that heavy beak, which he could see in flashing glimpses, getting close to him unless he had no choice.

The net fell, the bird screaming indignantly all the way, and Draco caught and balanced it in his arms. The bird thrashed around until it was staring at him, drawing shallow breaths all the while.

Draco blinked. No, the head didn't look like any hawk's head he'd ever seen. The face was white, with big, unexpectedly green eyes with intense black pupils. The pupils changed size while he looked, as if the bird was trying to focus on him. And the red feathers weren't just a spot of color; the whole _tail _was red, a rusty color that Draco had last seen in the worse class of sunset.

"What are you?" Draco murmured. He was starting to think that this wasn't a bird native to England, and that meant it had probably escaped from a Muggle zoo or pet shop. He turned the net over, trying to get a better look at that flared tail and the heavy feet. Now that he could see them, they were far too small to be a hawk's talons.

The bird screamed again and snaked its neck around in an unexpected maneuver, sinking its curved beak into Draco's thumb.

Draco swore and pulled his hand back, a steady stream of blood running down past his nail. The bird flailed enthusiastically and nearly broke free, but Draco cast a weak _Immobulus_ and froze it in place. Then he cast a charm that would make the net hover in the air while he healed the wound. The bird, apparently not completely frozen, rolled its eyes at him malevolently.

Draco recognized it now, and felt rather stupid for not doing it earlier. On the other hand, you didn't actually expect a parrot to turn up in your garden, not in this climate. He and Severus had lived in a few places where—

He cut off that memory before it could become uncomfortable and stepped forwards to study the bird. "You'll be lucky if Severus doesn't chop you up for potions," he told it. "I think he'd like to try your heart with a base of raven feathers and see what happens."

"Idiot," the bird said.

Draco jumped, the voice was so clear. Someone had owned this bird, he was sure, and probably had done some experiments of their own to teach it to talk. He shook his head and studied the bird more closely, looking for some kind of identification marker. He had heard that Muggles put things like that on their pets, though it was possible that it had been destroyed by the wards that would give free passage to animals but not to Muggle devices.

He found nothing unusual except a jagged white streak across the bird's forehead, hard to see because of the pallor of its face. There were bent and singed feathers, too, as though the bird had just barely escaped a fire. "Whoever had you last didn't treat you well," he murmured.

"I'm Harry Potter," said the bird.

Draco laughed. "You did have a conceited owner. Or perhaps someone who was a Potter fan?" He tried to remember if he'd heard what Potter was doing these days. Severus had a subscription to the _Daily Prophet _under a false name—which had been ridiculously easy to set up—and Draco remembered a story that Potter had gone through most of Auror training but decided not to become an Auror. He had no idea if he'd read anything more than that, though. About the only thing he was sure of was that Potter hadn't become a professional Quidditch player; there would have been more stories about him if that was the case.

"I'm _really _Harry Potter," said the bird. "Let me go."

Draco shook his head. "You're an intelligent bird, but everyone knows that parrots repeat what they see and hear." He paused, a bit of doubt coming to life in him. "Unless…"

He cast the spell that should force an Animagus to resume its human form. The bird did nothing but struggle and scream. Its voice was piercing, Draco thought, resisting the urge to plug his ears. He still didn't think that warranted the parrot's previous owner setting it on fire, though. You shouldn't own a bird like this unless you were prepared to deal with its voice in all its aspects.

"I thought so," Draco said. "A clever bird, and your owner was a Potter fan, which tells me that he was a wizard, but nothing more."

He stood a few minutes studying the parrot, and ignoring the idea that crept into his head until it was fully formed and he could regard it without embarrassment.

If the bird had belonged to a wizard—and it would have been a fantastic coincidence for it to belong to a Muggle or Squib who just happened to have heard of the wizarding world—then there was no way for Draco to get it back home. He couldn't reveal where he and Severus were. Even if he left Severus, as he sometimes dreamed of doing lately, he wouldn't deliver his former lover to the Dementor's Kiss.

That meant he was going to keep the bird, and whoever had owned it last could go hang.

Draco had never before thought of adopting a bird. On the other hand, he was so desperate for a change and a bit of relief from his boredom that he would accept anything that dropped into his lap.

"It looks like you're stuck with me for right now," he told the bird. "I'll have to think of something to name you." He waved his wand, removed the last of the Freezing Charm—which obviously hadn't been that effective, but then again, it probably wasn't meant to work on animals—and floated the net towards the house.

"Let me go, you bastard," said the bird.

Draco shook his head. "Your former owner was foul-mouthed in addition to everything else," he said. "A pity. Well, you'll hear better language here, if not always of the sweetest or lightest kind."

* * *

There were times that Harry hated the Animagus form his magic had chosen for him, useful as his wings and a human voice were.

He had thought of calling Malfoy by his name, to see if it would make a difference, but then again, the git already seemed to have discarded the suspicion that Harry could become human when his spell failed to break the curse on Harry. The mention of his name when there was no possible way a parrot could know it might have made him paranoid and determined to kill Harry.

And there was no way that Harry could resist or escape the magic as long as he was in this bloody net. His best hope for the moment was to wait for Malfoy to release him and then find the nearest window.

_If I can._

Harry flexed his wings as soon as Malfoy released him from the _Immobulus _Charm. They ached. An attempt to turn himself right-side up in the net made his breastbone—always heavy—flare like an old wound. Harry closed his eyes in a slow blink and ruffled his feathers. Maybe he _did _have to rest before he flew again.

On the other hand, if Malfoy got him into a cage, what was he going to do? A wizard could add charms around the bars that would give no normal bird a chance of escaping, and Harry was essentially a normal bird as long as he was under this stupid spell and as long as no one would believe him.

Gnawing the problem the way he wished he could gnaw Malfoy's fingers, he looked up only when they left the bright light of the garden and Malfoy swept him into the stone house that Harry had been distantly aware that the garden surrounded.

The first room was huge and shaped rather like a box, lined with dark wood that made Harry wonder exactly how Malfoy and Snape had afforded this. The furniture in the room seemed to consist entirely of two couches and three chairs, all of them piled with books. Harry saw dust lining the edges of the deep blue curtains and was glad that birds had no sense of smell.

Malfoy deposited the net on the floor and crouched to look at him. Harry opened his beak in a prolonged hiss. That might decide the prat against keeping him as a pet or as a source of mobile potions ingredients, which now appeared the likeliest options.

"You'll need a cage," Malfoy said, as if to himself. "A large one, since you're a large bird. And a perch to sit on. And…what do parrots eat? Seeds? Nuts? Crackers?" He trailed off, but not as if he was puzzled. He was staring at the far wall instead, and Harry thought that he was probably reliving a memory.

_While he's doing that, I'm floating here, tired and hungry and needing to spread my wings. _Harry spoke again, though by now he had lost hope that that would actually make Malfoy pay any attention. "Seeds. Nuts. Fruit."

"You _are _a good mimic," Malfoy murmured. "Maybe you'll eventually speak the way I do, rather than the way your former owner did."

Harry would have liked to be in a cage at that moment, if only so he could bang his head against the bars in frustration.

A door opened somewhere down the corridor that appeared to connect the boxy room with the back of the house. Malfoy scrambled to his feet and moved in front of the net as if he wanted to shield Harry from the sight of whoever was walking towards them. Harry shifted to the side, beating his wings a little so that he could regain his balance, and incidentally sending small white feathers flying everywhere.

"Hush!" Malfoy whispered at him.

Under the impression that he should do everything he could to inconvenience someone who refused to believe he was an Animagus, Harry flapped harder and screamed. The footsteps paused and then came further along, proving to belong to a tall, pale man wrapped in black robes and with a familiar irritated expression on his face.

Harry stared. He had assumed that Snape would have changed somewhat during the six years since he last saw him—even Malfoy had, if only to grow taller—but Snape might have walked out of the holding cell where Harry had last seen him. He fixed Harry with an inimical dark eye, but there was nothing new about that, either.

Harry unexpectedly relaxed. It was as if he had come home.

* * *

Severus did not bother asking where Draco had found the parrot. Draco regularly had small "adventures" as if he were still a child and needed such things to divert his imagination. He directed his gaze at Draco, however, only after he had examined the bird for long enough to ensure that he knew what kind it was. It would not do to look stupid in front of the one person who had always depended on his knowledge.

"What are you doing with an African grey parrot, Draco?" he asked, and had the satisfaction of seeing Draco's jaw fall and his eyes light up. It would be a black day when he could not manage to startle and impress Draco.

"Is that what it is?" Draco breathed, looking down at the parrot as if it had suddenly sat up and performed a trick. "The really smart ones, the ones that can say all sorts of things? I didn't know. I thought it was a crow at first, or a dove. I didn't know that it was a parrot until it bit me," he added, holding up his thumb for inspection.

Severus glanced at it because he knew he must, and then turned his attention back to the bird. It was watching him with bright, mad green eyes that somewhat interested him. As far as he knew, most African greys had golden eyes. "I want a feather or two from its tail to test in that Draught of Readiness. Is it a Muggle pet?"

Draco shook his head. "And not an Animagus, either. It mentioned Harry Potter, and it seems to know plenty of other words, but there's no way that we can send it back to its owner. I'm keeping it."

Severus stared at him, surprised that Draco would think he cared about a proposition so astonishingly irrelevant. Draco had his chest puffed out and his cheeks slightly flushed, as if he assumed that he would have to defend his choice of pet. Severus shook his head. "I do not care, as long as it does not disrupt me." He crouched down and reached for the bird's tail, trusting that it was caught well enough in the trap that it could not move.

The parrot managed to flip itself over and snapped its beak at him. "Don't touch the tail," it said.

Severus could see why Draco might want the bird. Its voice was astonishingly clear, and it moved as if it knew what it was saying. He cast a weak charm that would hold the beak shut and then plucked the two feathers. The minute he released the magic, the bird shrieked and spasmed as if it were dying. Severus winced and rose to his feet, making a mental note to redouble the soundproofing charms on his lab.

"You may put the cage in here, if you would like," he said indifferently to Draco. "I have one belonging to a rat that you could enlarge."

Draco nodded, his eyes on the floor. Severus gritted his teeth. Sullen moods like this sometimes took Draco, even after his generous offers—in fact, most often after his generous offers—and Severus had not found the answer why after six years of living together.

He left to go back to his lab, already testing the consistency and strength of the feathers. They bent under his finger too easily to be of use in the Readiness Draught, he judged, but he would try them with the raven-feather base and see what happened.

* * *

"He never even asked what I was going to name you, or why I wanted to keep you," Draco told the bird dully.

It looked up at him with one eye, cocking its head to the side, and Draco shook his head. It wasn't as though the bird knew anything about his situation or could help him. And really, did he _deserve _to be helped? The confrontation with Severus, as it always did, had left him feeling like an adolescent. Severus cared about deep things, important things. What was Draco's desire to adopt a pet against his experiments that were making his (assumed) name rich and respected in the outside world?

"I think I'll call you Compensation," Draco muttered, and followed Severus to find the cage.

What could he do? There was nothing for him to go back to if he left.

Increasingly, though, he was feeling as though there was nothing for him to stay for, either.


	2. From Between the Bars

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—From Between the Bars_

After a few days of living in a cage, placed against the far wall of the large dark room that served Snape and Malfoy as a cross between study and drawing room, Harry knew more about the two men than he had ever wanted to know.

For example, he knew that Malfoy stumbled out of bed in the morning with his hair mussed all to one side and bits of food still stuck between his teeth. He would give Harry the bowl of seeds, nuts, and slices of fruit that he seemed to have decided was a perfect diet for a parrot, yawning all the time, which gave Harry the perfect opportunity to look at his tonsils, assuming he _wanted _to. Then he stumbled back into the bathroom and did some arcane series of wandless Transfigurations that resulted in him emerging looking like the sleek man Harry had spotted in the garden that first day.

Malfoy would spend a portion of the morning talking to Harry, or rather, sitting in the same room and using Harry as a convenient audience for his tales of woe or his latest reading. Then he would go out in the garden and sit staring at the sky. He came back inside to eat his lunch, then would sit with a book, or sleep, or go walking in the garden once more, and so on until dinner.

He never seemed to spend much time with Snape.

Harry wasn't stupid; he had figured out within a few hours of coming here that Snape and Malfoy were lovers. But it showed more in the way Malfoy hunched his shoulders and snapped, and Snape ignored him with a magnificence Harry couldn't remember Snape using even on _him_ in school, than in any tender touches or loving words.

Harry had to seriously pause when he thought of that and ask himself whether he had thought that Snape and Malfoy would use tender touches or loving words _anyway_. He would shake his head and preen his feathers afterwards, in the hopes that smoothing them back into place would also put his thoughts in some semblance of order.

Snape was different. He would come out a full hour before Malfoy and stand looking through the window into the garden. Then he would turn around, give Harry a single cold look, and go to fetch his own breakfast. (If Malfoy ate breakfast, Harry never saw him do it). After that, it was brewing, brewing, brewing, and sometimes reading Potions books in the drawing room-cum-study in the evening, pausing now and then for a single bite of toast or a cup of soup.

Harry thought he would have feared Snape less in school if he had known how phenomenally _boring _the man was.

Snape almost never spoke. He seemed to find enough to content him in his cauldrons and books. Malfoy would look at him constantly, open his mouth, and then snap it shut again, turning his head away. Harry could practically hear him thinking that interrupting Snape's solitude would never be worth it.

_A pretty sad statement when you think about it, that you can't imagine interrupting your lover to offer him your presence, _Harry thought, and then had to spend a little time biting his toenails before he could feel normal again.

Snape and Malfoy's relationship—if Harry _had _to think about it in those terms, and it seemed he did—was falling apart slowly, like a building subjected to the Detonation-in-Eternity Curse. Snape never noticed. Malfoy was too wrapped up in it to notice anything else.

That ought to have made this the perfect set of conditions for Harry to escape. Malfoy barely paid attention to him except when Harry did something he hadn't seen before, like hang upside-down from the top of the cage, or when he wanted an audience to the sad little story of his sad little life. Harry should have picked the lock that fastened the door of the cage and made his way out the window on the second day, or at least convinced Malfoy that he _was _who he said he was and got some help in changing back.

Except that neither of those worked.

Malfoy had been clever when he conjured the lock, clever enough that Harry thought he ought to be punished by being locked up with it after death (if he shouldn't be punished by being made to sit in a room with Snape and continually trying to get some of his attention). The lock had a steel cover over the wards that made it move, and the cover was impossible to lift from any angle that Harry could attain inside the cage. Even when he clung to the bars of the door beneath it, stretched his beak through the bars, and lifted, the cover wouldn't cling to anything; it fell back down with a rattling noise just when Harry was starting to insert the curved tip of his beak between the flutings of the lock.

It was _maddening_.

The other course, Harry tried in desperation the fourth day he was there, because he thought that perhaps his suspicions about Malfoy being paranoid and willing to kill him if Harry mentioned his name were exaggerated. He waited until Snape was deeply involved in something in his lab and Malfoy was sitting on the couch, supposedly reading but really staring at the wall with a faraway look in his eyes. He was about to begin complaining, and Harry would just as soon head that off if he could.

"Listen," he said.

Malfoy glanced at him with a faint smile. "Your voice _is _so clear, Compensation," he said. (Harry also hated the name Malfoy had chosen for him. It made Malfoy sound so soppy and Harry sound like some faithful lapdog come to relieve his loneliness). "I reckon that you'll start talking like us eventually, won't you? Or like me," he added, plunged straight back into gloom. "I don't think Severus ever talks to you."

Harry had an unfortunately clear, if brief, vision of Malfoy twisting in Snape's arms in bed, calling out, "_Severus!_" He shuddered as best as he could without big shoulders and tried again.

"I really did know you at Hogwarts, Malfoy," he said. "You scared me on the Quidditch pitch by dressing up like a Dementor. I found you in the bathroom crying during our sixth year. It's me, Harry Potter."

Malfoy went quite still. His hand slid to his wand. Harry held his breath, ready to spread his wings and flap furiously from side to side if he needed to. Luckily, Malfoy had made the cage big enough for that.

Then Malfoy shook his head and cast a spell. He was distant enough on the couch that Harry couldn't make out the words his lips were forming, but the movements of his wand looked familiar. It was a charm that would let him sense any magic clinging to an animal, or at least Harry thought it was. He arched his neck helpfully on his perch and hoped for the best.

Malfoy sat still when the spell was finished and turned pink. Then he rose and stalked across the room to Harry.

He bent down so that his face was level with Harry. Harry looked at him hopefully. He didn't like the look in Malfoy's eyes, though, and his words were even less likeable.

"Severus?" Malfoy whispered. "Can you hear me? This isn't funny, you bastard. It wasn't funny when you enchanted the morning glory and it's not funny _this _time either."

Harry stared. _What?_

"You can't fool me into thinking it's the bloody _bird_," Malfoy said, voice scathing. "I just checked and there's no magic of any kind on him—no charms that would give him memories belonging to someone else, no magic that would conceal the fact that he's an Animagus, _nothing_. That means it's you and your bloody undetectable potions again. Give me one reason, just _one_, why I shouldn't storm into your lab and interrupt your brewing."

"It's _really _me," Harry said, and tried to think of something Malfoy had done to him that Snape wouldn't know about, the way he would about the bathroom incident and probably the confrontation on the Quidditch pitch. It was hard, though, when his mind was reeling with the other knowledge Malfoy had discovered.

Not only had the criminals he'd been spying on put a spell on him that would trap him in his Animagus form, they'd used another charm—or that charm itself had a component—that made anyone else unable to find the magic.

_Bastards. _Harry hoped they'd all burned in the fire that a quarrel over money between them had started.

"You wanted to fight a duel with me first year," Harry said, and pressed closer to the side of the cage, cocking his head so that he could see Malfoy better with one eye. _Damn beak._ "You didn't show up. That was a trap. You didn't tell Snape about that, did you? You couldn't have."

"Yes, very funny, Severus," Malfoy said, but his voice had changed. It sounded more like frozen glass breaking and less like anger. "To use words against me that I spoke in privacy. I find your joke unamusing, and since you won't admit to it…"

He stalked away down the corridor.

Harry leaned his forehead against the bars and kept it there for a minute, not caring how odd the gesture would make him look to anyone who thought he was a bird. By this point, someone thinking he was odd could only work out well for him.

_Fuck. I forgot that they've probably been lovers, or at least friends, for years, and that Malfoy has probably told Snape everything about his Hogwarts career in a desperate attempt to seem important enough for him._

_And if Snape has played jokes like this before…_

If he had to pick a side in the endless arguments that haunted this house, Harry thought, this would have been enough to make him choose Malfoy's.

* * *

Draco could feel the anger and the bile collecting together in his throat, creating a hot mixture that he would have to spit out rather than swallow. Luckily, he had someone he could unload that mixture onto.

Severus had cast spells like this before, though only the first one had ever fooled Draco. He had made his voice seem to emerge from the morning glory vines shortly after they'd begun to grow, and because of his use of a potion, Draco had found no magic when he used the charm that should have detected it. Draco had half-believed, for a few minutes, that the vine was really as strange and sentient as it seemed to be, a transformed wizard or unknown magical variety, and had confessed several different things to it before he remembered the Televox Potion that Severus was working on. He had destroyed the vine in a fit of rage and suffered from Severus's calm assessment that night that he was childish and required help in controlling his anger.

Severus had tried it since, with furniture and other flowers and insects, but not for years. Draco had thought he had given it up at last.

Now he understood. Severus had only waited until he had a target that Draco might actually have believed, a bird with a human voice.

Draco struck out with one arm when he reached the wards around Severus's lab. Though Severus had undoubtedly forgotten it, he had built weaknesses and flaws into the wards years ago, when they were on better terms, that would respond to Draco's touch and fall apart if Draco ever desperately needed to reach him. They allowed Draco, now, to walk straight into the lab and not fear the fire that might have come to life in his guts if he was an intruder.

He slammed the door behind him.

Severus jumped, dropping a bit of metal he held into the cauldron he was currently poised above. Draco smiled. He thought it was probably a mean and spiteful smile, and he wasn't displeased with the notion that Severus would turn around and see that on the face of the person who had dared to interrupt him.

Not that Severus turned at once. He stared into the ruined potion as if he wanted to memorize the exact terms under which it had failed, and then turned so that his robes snapped and clapped behind him. But Draco, if not immune to hurt from his lover, had at least grown immune to this tactic years ago, and only waited, arms folded, until Severus faced him.

"I don't know why you assumed I would believe your voice emerging from a bird's beak any more than I believed it coming from the table two years ago," he said.

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Do tell me whatever impossible story you have dreamed up now, Draco," he drawled, "and strip it of unnecessary details, so that I may return to what gives meaning to my life."

Draco sucked in his breath. He would have liked to close his eyes and take a moment to assimilate the hurt Severus's words caused him. He had never said before, so openly, that his brewing mattered more to him than Draco did.

But closing his eyes was a sign of weakness that Severus would pounce on in a moment, so instead he told the truth that Severus must already know.

"You used the Televox Potion to make my bird speak about secrets only you could have known," he said. "It wasn't your voice, but it doesn't need to be when that parrot has one of its own. I've checked and double-checked, and there's no magic on the bird at all, let alone any charm that could have concealed Animagus ability. It was _you_. It must have been. Why? Are you annoyed that I've passed all your little exams for the last year or so?" That was Severus's justification for the pranks he tried to pull, that they were exams meant to test Draco's emotional resilience and mental stability. He had to be stable, both mentally and emotionally, if he was to last out years in a confined and controlled environment like this house where they had only each other, Severus had explained.

That was another explanation that Draco would have received with wide eyes and beating heart years ago, longing to be found worthy.

Now he knew that Severus would never find him worthy no matter what he did.

Severus regarded him with his mouth and nostrils pinched tight. Then he shook his head. "I did not use the potion," he said. "I have better things to do than grant you a chance to pass exams you have already failed."

"_When _did I fail it?" Draco demanded, drawn despite himself into a row that he hadn't wanted to have. "Tell me that. I was fooled for _three _minutes that first time, and since then, I've never believed you."

"Those three minutes were the failure."

Severus's mouth was twisted, his eyes bright with contempt and disgust. Draco clenched his hands into fists. He could not believe that he had once loved this man, or convinced himself he did. Wasn't it more likely that he had brewed his hero-worship and his frantic wish to remain free into a concoction as poisonous as any of Severus's draughts and then called it love?

Well. He would have liked to think that, but he wasn't sure he could, when his head and chest still pounded with pain whenever Severus did something like this.

"You're lying," Draco whispered. "The bird isn't an Animagus. You've done things like this before. What other explanation could there be?"

"If you must think that to live with yourself, then so be it," Severus said, and turned away. "I will need an hour's extra work to put this right. Consider that hour stolen from time I might have spent with you this evening."

The audacity made Draco want to scream. Severus never spent time with him in the evenings anymore. It had been months since they'd slept in the same bed, even. But to say that, to imply that he _might _have, and that it was Draco's fault that he had changed his plans…

It was the kind of emotional blackmail that Severus had been pulling for years, Draco thought dully. It had either been less blatant before, or Draco had refused to see it for what it was. Perhaps a combination of both. In some ways, though not in all, Severus Snape was not a subtle man.

"Fine," he said, and walked out of the room.

At least he managed to keep his head from dangling uselessly until he got out of the corridor that led to the lab. And then he gathered up lunch—if only a cheese sandwich—and ate it before he went out into the garden. And he chose a section of the garden that he knew Severus couldn't see from either the lab or the kitchen, the rooms he was likely to spend time in for the rest of the afternoon.

He had little left except his pride. Best to nourish that, if only with the scraps of dignity and restraint he could snatch from Severus.

* * *

When and why had he taken such a childish lover?

The thought intruded itself between Severus and his refinement of the Blood-Replenisher, which had never happened before. Draco's entrance had disturbed him more than he had thought. He stepped back from the cauldron and began to pace out the neatly calculated set of steps around his lab that would give him the maximum of exercise while keeping him a comfortable distance from the cauldrons and more delicate ingredients.

An odd lie for Draco to speak, that accusation that Severus had used the Televox Potion on the ragged parrot he had rescued the other day—a bird whose feathers were not even good material for the potions he had tried them in. He must be lying, of course, because Severus had done no such thing and he had cast charms himself that showed the parrot was ordinary.

However, perhaps there were other explanations. It was more charity than Draco deserved, but he might have heard the words that he thought he had. Severus picked up his wand, listened a moment to ensure that Draco was not in the house, and then went into the drawing room, where the parrot's cage sat.

The enlarged rat cage was now nearly as tall as Severus and as wide as the smaller couch. The bird inside twisted its head around and eyed Severus sideways as he approached. Draco had trimmed and smoothed a branch that he had stuck through the middle of the bars to serve as a perch. The bird seemed to spend its time on that, staring at them and occasionally screaming when Severus was trying to read.

_No doubt he can sense delicate mental operations taking place and does not wish them to, as they might challenge his intelligence for supremacy, _Severus thought. Then he discarded the thought. Its rhetoric and formulation suggested that he was falling into the same trap as Draco by attributing unusual force of willpower and brainpower to the bird.

He lifted his wand when he was near the bars. The bird went frantic, immediately screaming, puffing his feathers out, and flinging himself off the perch to flutter around the back of the cage.

Draco might indulge such hysterics, but Severus had no time for them. He cast a spell that chained the bird's legs to the bars and then reached in with a confident hand to hold the neck still.

The bird bit his finger, beak closing down as if it meant to unscrew the top of his skin like a seedcase.

Severus swore, jerked his hand backwards, and cast Numbing and Blood-Clotting Charms in quick succession. His fault, of course; he should have muzzled the bird before he did anything else. He waited until he thought he would not incinerate the bird's feathers in a sheer display of bad temper—they could still be valuable, and he didn't wish to listen to Draco's sulks—and then raised his wand once more.

"I know you," the bird said. "Severus Snape. Snivellus. Sirius used to call you that. Do you remember him?"

Severus went very still. There were people in the world who still knew that he had borne that insulting name—though not the most damaging, with Black, the werewolf, and Potter all dead—but not many. And the list of the survivors was small enough that he thought he might determine who was speaking through the parrot with relative ease.

His mind, though, picked rapidly among the various players and justifications and could find no reason for this exact combination of circumstances. Why would any of those players send a bird to him to speak those words? If they could find their way through Severus's wards, they would simply have arrested him and dragged him back to suffer the Dementor's Kiss. Potter might have played a prank like this, yes, but Severus knew how rigid and brittle his justifications were. He would not have left the bird here so long before casting the spell that would let him speak through it, and he would not have left it so long before he came crashing through the wards on his self-righteous mission to capture Severus.

"Really, Snape. I didn't think you were this stupid. You sent Malfoy outside in tears. What, is he upset because you won't fuck him?"

Severus added a spell that would allow someone to see through the parrot's eyes to the list of magic that must be active here. It was extraordinary that any of the fools in the Ministry's employ could manipulate an animal's perceptions this way, given that they would have to push aside its instincts and desires in addition to coping with its limited presence in Severus and Draco's home. It could not have seen as much as the spy would have wished it to from its cage.

Of course, there was one answer that would fit all the evidence so far. Severus cleared his throat. "I am astonished at your facility with magic, Miss Granger, although I should not be. May I know the reason for the insults?"

"I'm not Hermione," the bird said. "I'm Harry Potter. I got trapped in this form by a spell that the people I was watching must have invented. _And _it has a component that makes it impossible to detect by other magic."

Severus shook his head. "There is no such spell. It is theoretically impossible to develop one. I have read esoteric magical theory for years, and the many who have tried have all stumbled against the same obstacles. If a researcher had discovered the means to make such a charm, he would have been internationally famous at once."

"Yeah," the bird said. "Because international fame really matters to _criminals_."

Severus cocked his head. Certain features of what the bird said would fit in with the evidence better than the explanation he had proposed. But he could not afford to let his guard down yet. He had lived too long for that.

"Say I accept your claim," he said. "Why did you not say something before now? If your form has a voice, you could have alerted us at once, and then Draco would have kicked you out through the wards and we should have troubled each other no longer."

"I couldn't fly because of another spell they cast on me as I was escaping," the bird said, shaking its feathers and climbing cautiously back down towards the perch before the chain stopped it from moving, "so I knew that I would have to stay here if I was going to recover. And if you did believe me, you might have hurt me. Or you might have been paranoid and tried to murder me. I can believe that you're paranoid, with all the wards around this place," he added under his breath. He raised his voice again with another glance at Severus. "Today, I decided that it was better to take the risk than stay a prisoner any longer. Are you going to help me or not?"

The voice sounded like Potter's, Severus thought, but that did not eliminate the hypothesis that he was manipulating the bird from a distance (after having got someone else to actually cast the spell, of course). He could at least try a few potions to see if the spell the bird described really existed and could be reversed. Already he could feel the excitement of a new theoretical direction stirring in him like a snake in water.

"I will attempt to help you," he said. "For a price."

Potter—truly, Severus might have to think of him that way now, hard as it was to accept that the boy had such an intelligent Animagus form—ruffled his wings out and stared at him gloomily.

"When you are human again," Severus said, "you will take an Unbreakable Vow not to reveal my location or Draco's, to willingly bring harm to us, or to lead anyone else here."

Potter bobbed his head. "Just stop me from being a _fucking bird _any longer."

"We will have to see," Severus said, and strode back down the corridor to his lab, taking exquisite pleasure in being able to leave Potter caged behind him.

It was only halfway through his first potion that he realized Draco had not been lying after all, though he had been mistake about the source of the parrot's words.

Severus paused, then lifted his shoulder in a shrug. The realization changed matters only within his own mind, not in the outside world.


	3. Sharp as a Claw

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Sharp as a Claw_

Draco came in from the garden in a fragile good mood. He had talked himself into ignoring Severus's foibles as he sat under the shade of the largest fruit trees, and instead remembered the good times they'd had immediately after settling in the cottage. Severus had taught Draco to brew complex potions he could never have managed on his own, and he had taught Draco more about sex than he had ever hoped to learn, either. He had touched Draco with reverent hands. Draco had looked up more than once and found Severus's eyes fixed on him, as if he was wondering where Draco had appeared from and when he would return to that strange, hidden land.

It had been like that once. Draco would make it like that again.

Or, if he couldn't, he would finally separate from Severus. There were places he could go without returning to the wizarding world—not many, but a few. And he did have skills that Severus had taught him and that he had deliberately cultivated in the last six years. He didn't like to _think_ about making it on his own, but he could.

He stepped into the drawing room and smiled at Compensation sitting in his cage. "Have you spent the afternoon well?" he murmured. "I have, much better than I expected."

"Oh, he didn't tell you, then?" The bird ruffled his feathers and took a step forwards on the perch as though he wanted to study Draco's reactions—which was ridiculous, Draco told himself a moment later. He was a bird. He knew he had a tendency to humanize Compensation, but this was too much. "Snape discovered that I really was Harry Potter trapped in a parrot's body, and he provisionally believed me. He's in the lab right now, working on a potion that might end this spell that traps me."

Draco's good mood shattered like a window with a stone thrown through it. He paused with his hand on the wall inside the door and narrowed his eyes at the cage. "I don't know why you're continuing with this trick, Severus," he said quietly. "You know that I'm no longer going to believe it, and that must make it less fun for you."

The bird actually shook his head, and Draco had to admit that he didn't think the Televox Potion could force an animal to do that. "I _am _Harry Potter," he said. "This is my Animagus form. I was tracking a bunch of kidnappers who thought it was fun and profitable to grab wizards and change them into animals that they could sell. But a fire broke out in their house, and I had to flee. One of them hurled a spell at me as I was escaping, one they developed. You can't detect it, but it means that I can't change back to human. Potions are probably my only hope, since their magic is too new to be fought with spells."

Draco closed his eyes. It didn't sound like the kind of story that Severus would come up with, but he no longer knew Severus very well.

"You're lying," he said. "Even if you were Harry Potter, there's no way that you would remain like this for as long as you did. You would have told us on the first day that something was wrong, and that way, you wouldn't have to endure the cage."

Compensation gave him a very human condescending look. "When I had to distrust you from school? When the last thing I knew about Snape was that he'd been condemned to the Dementor's Kiss and then disappeared? I couldn't be sure how you would react. Perhaps you wouldn't hurt me, but the wards around your house argued for someone paranoid. I stayed silent for a few days because I needed to heal anyway, and I thought this would be tolerable. It's not. I want to get out of here."

Draco sank onto the couch, staring at the cage. He was starting to believe in spite of himself. Now that he thought about it, Compensation's voice did sound like his memory of Potter's. And it beggared belief that the bird could have belonged to Harry Potter and had got in here on a coincidence.

_Well, unless he wanted to spy on us._

But Draco rejected that conclusion, too. It would have been better, if the bird was a spy, for Potter not to speak out at all and thus not to associate the bird with him in their minds.

"Why?" Draco asked at last, when his mind had whirled around so long without giving him a better answer that he was ready to believe. "Why come here?"

"I didn't know it was your house, did I?" the bird snapped, and scratched at his face with one foot, so fast that the foot blurred in Draco's sight. "The Aurors were waiting for my report in a camp not far from the kidnappers' house. I made for the nearest strong source of magic. I thought it would be the camp. But it happened to be your house instead."

Draco suddenly sat up, anxiety making his throat tight. "You can't tell them where we are."

"I don't even really know where you are," said the bird, and made his pupils widen and then shrink again rapidly. Draco thought it might be the avian equivalent of rolling your eyes. "And Snape made me already promise that, if he can get me back to human, I would swear an Unbreakable Vow not to reveal your location or harm you in any way."

That reminded Draco of something else. "How long after I went into the garden did Severus decide that you were Potter and he was going to work on the potions?"

"It's not like I can tell time that well in this cage," the bird—Potter—said, "and I don't have my wand on me to cast a _Tempus _Charm, do I? But I think it was less than an hour by the light."

Which meant it had been over five hours altogether. Draco had spent at least that length of time in the garden, soothing himself back into peace with Severus.

He hadn't known that he would be losing his pet, the only thing to come along and make his life interesting or different in—far too many months. He and Severus had been drifting apart for a long time, Draco thought, but it was only recently that he had _admitted _that to himself, and started looking for something that could soothe his boredom.

"I'll be right back, Compensation," he said, and then stood up and turned to go down the corridor to Severus's lab again.

"Potter," said the bird irritably, but Draco didn't care at this point. He could only think that Severus hadn't told him. Not to tell him that he was losing his pet, and not to ask for Draco's help with the potions, hard as they would be to brew when he had to counter completely new magic. He obviously thought he could do it by himself.

He didn't really need Draco anymore, did he? He could wank himself, if it came to that, and he had told Draco once or twice, in a particularly cutting mood, that he preferred his hand over Draco because the hand didn't take as much time and didn't demand as much.

For the second time that day, Draco broke through the wards around Severus's lab and flung the door open.

* * *

Severus could sense himself drawing nearer to an answer. The first two potions he had tried had failed, and why not? There were weaknesses in the recipes that he should have seen before he began to brew. But this new one was on the right track. Rather than following a recipe, Severus was simply acting on instinct, adding ingredients to the cauldron as they came to hand and felt right. Here a handful of mosquito eggs, here a petal from a hibiscus, here a sleek black feather from the left wing of a murdered raven. The flow of strength and goodwill through him was moving him towards the answer as smoothly as the current would move a boat downstream.

He was close. He could feel it—

The door opened.

Severus's mood broke, and the high, dignified certainty that he was going in the right direction fled. The cauldron in front of him, which a moment ago had held explicable lumps dancing in a pattern, dissolved into inexplicable lumps. He looked at it fixedly, so that he wouldn't look up and commit murder.

"Why didn't you tell me that the bird was Potter?"

Severus closed his eyes. Of course it would have to be Draco, no one else could break through his wards, but somehow Severus was not prepared for him, or for his inevitable, childish demand. The things Draco wanted were important only to him. When would he understand that?

"I wanted to begin my brewing, and you were in the garden," he said distantly, turning his head with supreme slowness so that he could give Draco the full benefit of his glare. "I would have told you when I had the potion ready."

"You still could have told me," Draco said. He had his arms folded and as many bristles as a Kneazle dropped in a puddle of water. "That bird's been the only interesting thing to happen to me in _months_. And now it'll be taken away, and you didn't feel compelled to _tell _me?" His voice was rising.

Severus shook his head. "What would a delay of a few hours matter?" Behind him, the potion made a loud _goop _noise. Severus knew that meant it had become, finally, unusable. He did not put his hand over his eyes, because that would let Draco have an insight into Severus's emotions he frankly did not deserve, but his fingers trembled with the wish to.

"If you really knew me, you would know the answer to that." Draco clenched one fist. Severus stared at him. He had not thought Draco so crude as to resort to physical violence. Draco had been cleverer than that even in his last year at Hogwarts, when he had cast spells strictly at the command of the Carrows or as needed in class, and had avoided fisticuffs altogether.

"Knowledge of you to that depth and extent is not one of my priorities," Severus said, and watched Draco's eyes grow wide and liquid with pain. He rolled his own eyes, and didn't care if Draco saw him doing it. Why in the world would he expect anything different of Severus? Draco hadn't made his attachment to the bird clear, and he could have adopted another pet if he wanted one. It was not as though Severus had kept the knowledge from him for a few hours to hurt him. He simply had not thought about it.

"Yeah, I can see that," Draco said. His voice cracked, but he cleared his throat and continued. "I don't think I'm interested in knowing you that well anymore, either."

He paused, as if to give Severus a chance to change his mind. Severus looked at him stolidly, patiently, and waited for Draco to realize that a lessened knowledge of each other was fine with him. They had come together in this place, but that did not mean they must always be bound as closely as they were when they arrived. It would have been easier if Draco had grown up to meet Severus, instead of staying a child.

Draco's eyes hardened to little grey pebbles that reminded Severus of the way that Lucius could look when thwarted in something he wanted by the Dark Lord.

"I didn't think so," Draco said, and then turned and stormed out of the lab, slamming the door behind him.

Severus waited until the distracting vibrations from the door had trembled throughout the room and ceased before he turned back to his potion. He could not recover exactly what he had been doing, but he could try. And there were new ideas in the back of his mind. What had prompted him to choose the mosquito eggs? If he could think of that, bring the incalculable impulses of the subconscious mind under the control of his conscious one, then he thought that he might reconstruct the potion.

It would not be the same as the one he would have brewed in those first moments of instinctive, ecstatic delight, of course. But that was the price he paid for his kindness to a boy who had _still _not realized how different his life in an isolated cottage with only one lover for company must be from the continual, changing parade and wealth he had envisioned.

* * *

Harry was watching for the moment when Malfoy came out of Snape's lab. He had expected him to be angry, and he hoped that Malfoy would have a few more choice insults to describe Snape's behavior. Since Harry couldn't speak them himself without possibly causing the man to stop brewing his potion, he would just have to rely on Malfoy for a little while.

But Malfoy came out of the lab silently, and stood in the middle of the drawing room, his face burning with a cold flame. Harry cocked his head so that he could get one eye firmly on the man. His cheeks were bright pink, but his eyes glittered in a way that said he didn't care about his own embarrassment. He was sorting through anger instead.

Harry had seen Hermione look like that when people in the Ministry called her a Mudblood. He had seen Ron look like that when someone had almost killed Percy. In neither case had the outcome been good for the person who caused the anger.

"Are you all right?" Harry found himself asking, without even considering beforehand whether he would ask it.

Malfoy didn't answer. Instead, he shut his eyes once and then opened them, staring straight ahead in a determined fashion. Then he turned and started back down the corridor once more. Craning his neck, Harry could just make out that he was disappearing into the room Harry thought was a bedroom, rather than Snape's lab.

It was frustrating as fuck at the moment to be caged and not able to see much outside the room. Harry climbed to the top and hung upside-down, hoping that would help him with the angle, but it didn't, much. All he could make out was that Malfoy's bedroom door was open and there was a series of regular thumps, as though he was shifting furniture around.

_Or packing._

Harry cocked his neck and flapped his wings hard enough to detach small feathers and send them swirling around the room. Let Snape find them in the morning and stare at him in outrage.

He didn't know why he should feel so happy that Malfoy was getting out of this situation, especially since Snape would be worse company and probably forget to feed him, but he was.

"Do you need help?" he called down the corridor. "I know a few good shrinking spells the Aurors use that aren't standard knowledge among people outside the Ministry."

The packing sounds died into silence. Harry turned himself around on the bars and pressed his eye between the nearest two. He could make it out when Malfoy's head popped into the corridor, from the flicker of the lamps on that pale hair if nothing else.

"Why would you care?" Malfoy asked. He paused, as if those weren't the words he wanted, and then revised it to, "Why would you help me?"

"Because if I can't do anything about being in a cage myself, then at least I can make sure that someone else gets to open his," Harry said. The words felt right, shaped and smooth in his mouth, in a way that most of the words he spoke as a parrot hadn't. And they were the reason that he was so happy Malfoy was getting out, he thought. Of course. He had a constitutional dislike of cages. After the sessions with the kidnappers where they kept him in a cage most of the time and only brought him out occasionally, that was even stronger.

Malfoy came back down the corridor into the drawing room and stood staring at him. Harry shifted so that he was clinging to the side of the cage, and stared back.

"You're really him," Malfoy said softly.

Harry bobbed his head in an exaggerated nod. It wasn't a comfortable motion for a parrot, but then, comfort was low on his list of priorities at the moment. Seeing Malfoy escape Snape was highest.

"God," Malfoy said, and shut his eyes again. At least he no longer looked embarrassed. He ran a hand through his hair. "I've thought about leaving Severus for a long time," he said. "But we were bound together by shared history and by practicality. Where was I going to go? I left everyone behind when I fled. My parents are both in Azkaban. Or dead," he added quietly. "I haven't received a letter from them in years."

"They're both still alive, as far as I know," Harry said. "But they instituted a policy years ago that inmates of Azkaban can't send or receive letters, because relatives of inmates were sending spells attached to parchment that helped several people escape. Face-to-face visits only are the policy now."

Malfoy's shoulders sagged. "That would make sense," he said, almost to himself. Then he looked up with an iron face. "And now I've decided. It's better to go somewhere, _anywhere_, else, even if I don't know exactly how I'll be received there."

Harry bobbed his head again. He had felt something similar when he quit the Auror program.

"I could take you with me, I reckon," Malfoy said, giving him a critical look. "As long as you would make the same promise not to betray us, and as long as you think that someone outside of Severus's lab might be able to change you back. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to stay here until he was finished brewing the potion."

"I have no reason to want to owe him anything," Harry said.

Malfoy smiled and reached over to unlock the cage.

A voice spoke from the corridor, cool and smooth enough that Harry wouldn't have been surprised to see it coat the walls with ice. "You were thinking of leaving me, Draco? And you did not consider what would happen to me in your absence?"

Malfoy's fingers hesitated on the lock. Harry grabbed one of them in his beak, intending to hasten it on, but he must have pinched too hard, because Malfoy snatched his hand back and looked offended. Harry tried to look as apologetic as he could while muttering, "Sorry." He didn't think his face was the best for looking sorry, though. He could more often look falsely innocent when he had just played a joke.

"I didn't think you would care," Malfoy said, staring at the wall without turning around. The not turning around was a hopeful sign, Harry thought, but his voice had begun to shake, and _that _wasn't. "You've made it clear for the past few days that you care far more about your brewing than about me. Why shouldn't I leave and find someone who will give me the attention and respect I deserve?"

Snape moved into sight. Though he must have been able to feel the pressure of Harry's watching eyes, he never glanced at him; all his attention was for Malfoy.

"I have spoken in haste and in temper," he said. _Smooth, so smooth, smooth as snake oil, _Harry thought in anger, twisting his head around and snapping his beak. He wanted to make Malfoy look at him, but Malfoy had closed his eyes. "I have been neglectful of you lately, and not in a position to glance up from my cauldron and realize what you needed."

"It's been more than 'lately,'" Malfoy said, his voice muffled. Harry glanced at him and saw that he had one hand in front of his mouth and seemed to be biting down on the skin of his knuckles. "You haven't paid proper attention to me in months. Can you name the date that we last slept together? You haven't missed it."

Snape stepped up behind Malfoy and rested his hands on his shoulders. Malfoy started, then let his head fall back in spite of himself, Harry thought. He could see the familiar tiny shudders working through Malfoy, the kind of shudders someone gave when a long-time lover touched them. It didn't really matter if that lover had been a bad or a good one; be together for months or years, and you grew familiar to each other anyway.

Harry had last felt it with Ginny. None of his relationships since then had lasted long enough.

"I have missed it," Snape said. "It's true that my brewing has dominated my life. But if it were the only source of stimulation I required, I would have been able to take it up without difficulty after you interrupted me today. I could not. The first time, I came out here and talked to Potter. The second time, just now, I thought about what you had said, and I came to some sense of the justice of your words."

"He's lying," Harry said.

Snape lifted his head and gave Harry a look that could have burned him. Harry gave a few short flaps with his wings and stared boldly back. He doubted, now, that Snape would take the risk of killing him. That would probably drive Malfoy away for good, and for his own incomprehensible reasons, he wanted Malfoy to stay around.

"Turn and look at his eyes," Harry insisted. "They're cold even as he speaks all these warm and soothing words to you."

"They're always cold," Malfoy muttered, but he did turn and look up, his gaze questioning.

Snape regarded him with a deep, dark stare. Harry could see how it would have drawn in someone young and impressionable. Malfoy had only been eighteen when he helped Snape escape, after all.

Malfoy shuddered and took a long breath. "I don't believe you," he whispered. "Not really. Not unless you'll take me upstairs right now and make love to me."

Harry saw a spasm cross Snape's face at the mention of "making love," but he nodded and dipped his head to lick at the curve of Malfoy's ear. "As you wish," he said.

Malfoy's fingers tightened on Snape's arms. Harry couldn't see his face well from this angle, but he knew why. Malfoy would be intoxicated by the mere fact that Snape had given in, which couldn't happen often. Harry had had his share of lovers like that, too. He and Susan Bones had fought so often that it seemed like a heaven of peace and harmony when she would let him pick the restaurant.

"He's _lying_," Harry said. "He's trying to make you stay. Can't you see that?"

Malfoy started to answer, but Snape took his mouth in a kiss, and his fingers worked from Malfoy's shoulders into his hair and onto his neck. Malfoy shuddered and clasped Snape in his arms. Snape began to draw him carefully towards the corridor again, his murmurs muffled by the kiss but clearly audible. Malfoy whimpered.

"Idiot!" Harry screamed after him, and then added in a few more normal parrot screams for good measure.

But they were gone, and except for one look of triumph that Snape gave him just before they disappeared, Harry didn't think they were noticing him anymore.

He sat in his cage and fumed for ten solid minutes. Disappointment as sharp as a claw stabbed him several times. Malfoy had been so _close _to fleeing his cage. Why had he given in again? He had to know that Snape changing his mind again that quickly meant no good.

Harry twisted his head to the side, thinking he should engage in some preening to soothe his ruffled feathers and his ruffled feelings, and caught sight of the lock.

He hadn't thought Malfoy had touched it, but then again, he had been more engaged in paying attention to Snape. Malfoy _had _flipped back the steel cover, though, and slid one of the complex flutings aside.

Harry promptly began to swing himself down the bars. He knew already what he would do. First, he would slide the lock open as delicately as he could; if he pushed too hard, he would make the cover tremble and fall over the lock again, which would prevent him from reaching it.

Second, he would fly down the corridor to Snape's lab and see if he couldn't get in there. Snape had wards up, but he might have removed them when Malfoy had stormed in on him, or he might have left the door of the lab open, or he might have wards against animals in general but not against Animagi. Harry had got into more than one private home or lab because someone had overlooked that precaution.

And once he was in the lab…

His form was limited as far as casting spells went, but nearly _un_limited when it came to destroying delicate equipment.

Harry ground his beak in contentment, and went to work.


	4. The Destruction of a Beak

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four—The Destruction of a Beak_

"Severus, _yes_…"

Severus closed his eyes and drove deeper, faster, into Draco. He would not have been willing to admit that he had missed the cry of his name on Draco's lips. He had thought that he did not. Why would he? He had long since come to think of Draco as childish and his promise to take the boy with him when he escaped a mistake.

But even as his body shuddered in pleasure and Draco shuddered beneath him, clawing at his shoulders and bellowing like a bull, part of Severus stood back, coldly observed the both of them, and noted that pleasure was running through Severus's mind, too, when he heard Draco react like that.

He finished and rolled to the side, slipping out of Draco's body. He had never liked the sensation of having his soft cock inside something, especially something that he had just made wet and dripping.

Draco opened one eye and gave him a smile of such gentleness that Severus blinked. He had not minded Draco growing colder to him because he knew that he offered only cold treatment himself, and it would be better for Draco to imitate him than whinge about it. He found himself rising to hover over Draco, tracing one finger down his cheek. Draco licked his finger, and Severus knew that his cock would have stirred again, had it been possible this close to coming.

"Thank you," Draco whispered. "That was wonderful." He paused, and suddenly his gaze was anxious as he looked up at Severus again. "Wasn't it wonderful?"

It cost Severus nothing to nod and bend his head, kissing Draco until he gasped and his eyelashes fluttered. "Go to sleep," he commanded when he drew back.

Draco did, his hand still entwined in Severus's as though they had been in the habit of holding hands for years before this. Severus lay staring at it until that cool, observing part of his mind managed to get his attention.

Why had he agreed to have sex with Draco in the first place? Why had he seduced Draco when he heard that he was leaving? He could have allowed both Draco and Potter to walk out the door, and that would have been the end of his problems, the long-term one and the immediate. Potter would have found someone else to help him, and Severus could still have invented a potion that reversed the kind of spell Potter talked about and become rich and famous.

Instead, he had acted impulsively, driven by only one conviction: that he did not dare to let Draco leave him.

Severus leaned his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. He did not intend to sleep, but he thought better when he was looking at nothing if he was thinking about a subject other than potions, and he _needed _to understand this. Why should he have felt as though he were falling down a well when Draco spoke of leaving?

He did not know, and no matter how long he sought in his head, he could not find an answer. The only halfway rational reason would have been if he believed that Draco would betray his location out of spite, and he knew that Draco was not that kind of person.

He could have been rid of all his problems and had the solitude, the silence, the mental loneliness he so craved. He needed neither Draco's body nor his mind. He had never required company, and in fact did best when deprived of it.

He did not understand himself.

He passed into silence and sleep as he lay there, and awakened only when a resounding crash traveled through the house from the ground floor.

* * *

Harry hadn't found the lock that hard to open after all. He had slid two bars to the side, one up, and then got out of the way just as the motion jiggled the lock and brought the steel cover clicking back down.

By then, though, it hadn't mattered. The lock had tilted and clung drunkenly to the bars, so that the cover could no longer protect the majority of it. Harry had shoved with his beak and one foot, and the lock had twisted inwards and then fallen so that it crashed to the floor of the cage. Harry hopped triumphantly up to the door—which was a simple sliding bar without the lock—and pushed with his beak one final time, continuing when it started to hurt. He would have to do far more than endure a little pain in his face before he was done here.

The door opened, and Harry flew out into freedom, circling the room once before he headed for the corridor.

Just in time, he saw the wards that stretched across the corridor at about head and chest height on Malfoy, the wards that were specifically intended to take down flying birds. Harry had learned to recognize them pretty early after he'd learned his Animagus form, when he'd blundered into one that was intended to stop marauding crows and lain moaning on the ground until the next morning, to the Muggle farmer's astonishment.

_Shit. _Harry fluttered back and landed on the couch, crouching to shit on it while he stared gloomily at the wards. _Does this mean that Snape's locked the whole lab behind them, and that I don't have a chance of getting in there and destroying his equipment?_

This was the first moment since Snape and Malfoy had vanished upstairs that Harry had been thinking instead of doing, and he wondered whether this was as good an idea as he had thought at first. Snape had been going to help him. What reason would he have to if Harry destroyed some of his equipment? Perhaps ingredients that he needed would be lost in the destruction.

But then Harry thought again of the way Malfoy had leaned back against Snape and closed his eyes, while Snape kept his open and talked in that cold, concrete way that said he knew exactly what he was doing. Malfoy had nearly flown his cage, and it was a cage, however pretty the house and however much free will he'd originally exhibited by coming here. And Snape had slammed the bars down again.

Harry could still flee now that he was out of the cage and find someone else to help him. He doubted if there was any way that he could help Malfoy flee, though. After this, Malfoy would make excuses for Snape and push any thought of freedom away because that would make him question himself intolerably. Harry had seen that sort of reaction before—from Ginny when she got involved in a bad relationship, from the Weasleys when they were faced with the fact that Mrs. Weasley was going too far in her grief over Fred, from other trainees in the Auror program who had felt trapped, like Harry, but also felt they couldn't break away because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

Harry shook his feathers as the rage returned. He might not be able to do anything about Malfoy staying a prisoner, no, but he was damned if he would accept help from his jailer.

He fluttered down to the floor and studied the wards again. Then he smiled. The wards were stretched at the heights that Snape must have thought a bird would fly.

There was nothing to prevent him from _walking _down the corridor, though.

Harry set off, his tail bobbing behind him, his body rolling from side to side. He had to control his parrot's curiosity when he got near some of the other doors. He was interested in Snape's lab only, and he should move fast, since he didn't think that Snape would stay busy with Draco for long.

_Probably fuck him and drop him as fast as he can, to get back to his precious potions, _Harry thought. _Malfoy deserves better than that._

He wished he could smile with a beak. That was the kind of thing he could see Ron fainting about when Harry told him he'd thought it.

The door of Snape's lab was shut, but he had failed to engage the wards, probably because he'd come down the corridor so abruptly to stop Malfoy from leaving. Harry reached out, opened his beak, and carefully slid his tongue through the tiny gap the door left around itself. Then he pushed as hard as he could, shoving with body and beak and forehead.

The door trembled and groaned. Harry did much the same thing. The door had an unpleasant taste of wood and some kind of chemicals, probably left over from Snape's brewing, and he didn't like the pain he was experiencing throughout his head and neck.

But it paid off. The knob likely had wards built into it if someone touched it, and therefore Harry hadn't wanted to try it, but the gap around the door wasn't covered by those without the larger complex of wards Snape had forgotten to engage. And the door was old wood that couldn't resist that kind of steady pressure. It swung open at last.

Harry waddled into the room, just in case Snape had more wards up that would prevent a flying bird from taking a straight path, and looked around. The lab was a confusion of barrels and glass objects and metals from this low on the floor, and even when he arched his neck, he couldn't see much of what was on the shelves.

_Not that that matters, _Harry thought. _I'll make do with what I can find here on the ground. _He turned towards a wall of metal that was probably a cauldron and saw a wooden stirring spoon lying beside it. In moments he was across the room and had picked up the spoon in his beak.

It took longer than it usually did when he wanted to destroy something made of wood; the handle was thick and twisted around in his beak rather than breaking at once. But at last he found the weak point and snapped it in two, watching as the pieces flew apart from each other. One of them hit something on the left that broke with a tinkling sound. Harry danced up and down in place, flaring out his tail and cooing.

Then he turned and climbed one of the freestanding sets of shelves to the lowest one. It was filled with glass vials deepset in slots—probably completed potions, Harry thought. He tugged on the butt of one vial and couldn't get it to move. Each time it started to pull out, it ended up settling back into its slot again the minute he had to readjust his grip.

But that was fine. Harry was a smart bird and a smart person, and he knew what he had to do next. He started gnawing on the edge of the nearest slot, flaking away chips of wood and wearing down the container. This time, when he tugged on the vial, it slid easily to the side, because the hole was no longer as snug as it had been. Harry backed up and shook his head, and the vial was free, glittering in the dim light of the lab.

Harry stood there for long moments, half-hoping that Snape would walk through the door so that he could see what happened next.

But he didn't, so Harry tilted his head forwards and released the vial.

It fell what seemed a longer distance than the relatively short one actually separating the shelf from the floor, and pinwheeled before it smashed. Harry watched the potion leak across the floor among shards of glittering glass, and swept his beak across his back five times in celebration before he moved on to the next vial.

He only broke five of them before he became bored, though. Besides, it was taking more work than it was worth to chew up the wooden sides of the slots so that he could wrench the vials free. He looked around for something else he could destroy.

The nearest shelf above this one had a series of books on it. Harry scraped a foot across the shelf he stood on in satisfaction. That would do better, since he could chew through leather and paper faster than wood.

How to get there, though? There were wards strung in tight, glittering lines along the shelves. There were gaps between them that would permit a smaller bird, like a wren, to get through, but not one as large as Harry.

A few moments of study led Harry to see what Snape had missed, though. He bobbed his head, ruffled out his neck feathers, and then jumped out from the shelf he was currently on and flew straight up, almost to the ceiling, keeping close to the shelf so that the wards wouldn't sting him. Then he turned sideways and came down on the bookshelf from above. Humans didn't think like that a lot, Harry thought in contentment as he reached for the first book. They weren't used to living in a three-dimensional world.

The first book broke and crisped so fast under his beak that it almost wasn't fun. So Harry grabbed the next one, which was heavy, by the spine and dragged it instead of trying to bite it. Then he twisted and flung it into the air, though he had to recover his balance with a quick flutter of his wings so that he didn't go tumbling after it.

The book made its majestic way downwards and hit the edge of the potions vial shelf, exactly where Harry had meant to toss it. The shelf wobbled. Harry watched the long moments when it hesitatingly tipped, as if trying to make up its mind whether to surrender to gravity or to the balance of its wooden supports.

Gravity won the battle. It fell with a thunder that Harry could feel in vibrations under his feet, and the shattering and the clattering and the general _damage _that happened when the shelf hit the floor was like a soothing balm pressed directly on the source of Harry's rage against Snape. He let out a victory whoop and searched for another book he could send over.

Then he heard the footsteps hastening down from the stairs.

* * *

The crash woke Draco from his doze, but he wouldn't have moved if Severus hadn't torn himself out of the bed as if he had fleas and run away. Draco lay still for a moment, wondering what it could be. Had Severus accidentally left some explosive potion brewing? That could make a sound like that.

Then an image came to him, clear as sunlight, of his hand pushing back the cover of the lock on Potter's cage and moving one piece of it.

Draco swore and followed Severus.

Severus, he noticed, hadn't even paused to glance into the drawing room to see if Potter was still there before he made for the lab, but Draco did. The lock clung to the bottom of the bars, and the door was open. The cage was most definitely empty.

Draco shook his head in bewilderment as he passed through the wards in the corridor and towards the lab. Potter must have known that Severus was going to help him even after they had disagreed about Draco; the challenge of the potion was too great for him to simply give it up. Why would he have turned to destroying Severus's lab in what looked like retaliation?

Besides, Severus didn't deserve to be punished anymore.

Draco licked his lips and savored the delicious sensation in his arse for long moments as he watched Severus disappear into the lab. He hadn't felt anything like it in so long that it was almost strange, almost foreign.

But not really. He knew that Severus had done this as a gift to him, to keep him from leaving, but he had no problem accepting the gift despite that. There _would _be changes now. Draco was hopeful, because his threat of leaving shouldn't have affected Severus that much unless he really did care. And he would follow up his advantage and press Severus to give more proof of his feelings.

_Otherwise, I can always threaten to leave again._

A wordless shout came from the lab. Draco did hurry then. Severus sounded angry enough to kill Potter. _What did Potter do?_

He found out when he leaned through the door.

There was no room for walking in the lab, or so it seemed. The floor was strewn with glass, paper, bits of what had been the covers of books, potions, pieces of wood, and a random white fluff that Draco didn't recognize but which had probably come from the mixture of potions. Two shelves were tipped over and leaning drunkenly. One cauldron was dented; Draco didn't even know how Potter had managed _that_. The nearest window had a hole through it, though that might have come more from the spells that Severus was casting in a desperate, furious attempt to bring Potter down.

Potter was flapping around near the ceiling and screaming in fear, or maybe rage; Draco wasn't an expert on parrot sounds. Severus aimed another curse that bounced past him and took a chunk out of the ceiling. Potter ducked under it and flew straight towards the window that didn't have a hole through it. Draco blinked, wondering if he meant to slam himself to death against the glass rather than let Severus catch him.

But Potter suddenly changed course and swerved towards the bottom of the sill, while another curse passed over him and chopped out two panes of glass. Potter then dodged up and flew out the resulting hole.

_Clever bird, _Draco thought. _He knew he couldn't open the windows from in here. _And then he remembered that Potter wasn't a real bird, and snorted.

Severus started to step over to push his wand through the hole in the glass. Draco leaned back against the doorway and began clapping his hands, loudly, slowly, and deliberately. Severus would be able to tell the difference between this and ordinary applause—or, at least, Draco hoped he could. If he couldn't, there were problems in their relationship deeper than any he could fix.

Severus stood still for some moments, as if someone had Immobilized him before he could fire his last spell. Then he turned around and held out his wand so that it was at the level of Draco's heart, if not aimed there.

Draco stood his ground. It was amazing how steady he felt, how calm. He wouldn't have had the courage to stand up to Severus like this before Potter came. He would have exploded into anger that would have made Severus discard his opinion, or flinched before the thought of the coming row and never raised the subject.

But Severus had shown that he cared about Draco in some way, even if he only feared that he would be lonely if Draco left. And that meant things could change. They _had _changed when they slept together. Draco wasn't foolish enough to imagine that that indicated a permanent change of Severus's heart, but it was new.

"Are you quite done?" he asked.

Severus lowered his wand and sneered. "By all means," he said, "tell me why I should not be angry with Potter and the way that he has made a mess of my lab and a mockery of my hospitality."

Draco surveyed the mess with a careful eye before he responded. "I never said that you should not be angry," he said. "But you are reacting rashly and without thinking through your own motives."

Severus's eyes narrowed. "Explain," he demanded.

Draco chose his words with greater care this time. He wanted Severus to listen to him, and that would be the better goal to use his newfound position of power for. Insulting Severus, as fun as it could be, would change nothing.

"The wards that surround your lab should have protected it from Potter," he said. "Especially the new ones that I watched you put up the other day. Why didn't they?"

Severus was still for a moment, head bowed, fingers rapping on the wand. Then he said, "They were intended to defeat an unintelligent bird, which at the time I assumed Potter was. I did not have time to change the wards before I discovered the truth and was—called away."

"That shouldn't have affected the wards on the door," Draco said, in the mildest of tones. "Why didn't they engage? Why did they let him in?"

Severus turned his head and stared balefully at the door as if it were at fault. Draco waited, silently rejoicing. Even Severus had to know that it was no use blaming inanimate objects. He had always insisted that Draco face up to his mistakes instead of exculpating himself with random excuses. Would he have the courage to do the same thing?"

Finally, Severus murmured, "I was in haste. I must have neglected to engage the wards when I stepped out into the corridor."

Draco thought of making him admit what he had been in haste about, but there was no reason to do so. He simply nodded and said, "Yes, I see. But that means that Potter could not get into a lab that was properly protected. If we bring him back into the house—"

"And why should we do that?" It was Severus's turn to make his voice soft, the expression on his face dangerous.

Draco spread his hands. "Because we can keep the wards intact around the house and prevent him from escaping if we wish. And because the spell on him represents a great potential discovery, and it will be easier to study if we have him. Think of what we could achieve from him. Besides," he added delicately, "if he leaves now, he could betray us. Get him back to human and require the Unbreakable Vow, and that will not happen."

Severus had a sudden heaviness to his stance that had not been there before. Draco knew he was thinking about it. He held his breath and waited.

He wanted Potter back for his own reasons, of course. He wanted to speak with him more about possible reasons for leaving Severus. He wanted the attention of someone who seemed to care about him now, in case Severus started to turn back to his old ways before Draco could establish a foothold in his heart. And it was flattering to have the attention of his old schoolboy enemy, as well as power over him.

Draco had determined that things were going to change. It seemed to him mad now that he had let so many years pass before attempting this—

But he could understand the man he had been a few hours ago, and partially still was, and forgive him. Long years in near-solitude wore one down. Things that his eighteen-year-old self would have indignantly rejected seemed more plausible to his twenty-four-year-old one. And he had clung to the memories of the love he felt and decided that the only way to keep it alive was to remain close to Severus.

Not now. If he should leave, Draco wanted to know why. If he should stay, he wanted to know why. He wanted to keep the energy and anger pulsing through himself alive.

Potter had been the catalyst for it once before. He might serve as that again if Draco started to lose sight of his goals.

Severus must know nothing of that, of course. He had objected to Draco having an independent point-of-view before. But he could be brought around by the temptations Draco had dangled in front of him.

Severus nodded now, his eyes distant. "Very well. We will capture Potter instead of kill him." He paused and turned that distant stare on Draco. "But I will require your help in cleaning up my lab. And keeping him under control."

He probably didn't understand why Draco agreed to that so cheerfully, and Draco didn't see the point in trying to explain it to him. If Severus's heart had shrunk that much, he wouldn't understand it anyway.

If his heart had a lingering ember of a flame still…

Well, Draco would need to blow it alight at a better time.


	5. Within the Net

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Five—Within the Net_

Harry swore. He liked the way that his words sounded when he was a parrot, harsher and sharper and breaking against the air as if he were more offended than he actually was.

It was small compensation. Either Snape and Malfoy had strengthened the wards recently, or they were harder to break out of than into. Harry was trapped against the net of magic that stretched above the garden, with no way to chop through it.

Harry clung to the thin lines of magical energy that marked the wards the same way he would have clung to the bars of his cage and cautiously tested his beak on them. They stung back and made him screech and shudder. That wasn't the way to get out, then.

He could try to break through them the way he had when he came in, but he had only been willing to do that in the first place because he was already wounded and had thought for sure he'd found the Auror camp. The last thing he needed when he'd finally healed enough from the singing to fly again was to weaken and burn himself by breaking through _these _wards, especially when he still didn't know where the Auror camp was.

Now…

He dropped from the wards and flew carefully around the garden, just under the net, looking for the weakest place in it. But it seemed Snape didn't know the theory that said there should be one weak place in any net or cage where a desperate prisoner could break through if they needed to. The wards were all the same length and strength and thickness. Harry landed in a tree—after making sure that it didn't have a net of the same kind that had caught him last time—and swore again.

"I think you'd be better served to come back inside."

Harry peered down. Malfoy stood beneath the tree, arms folded and grin steady as he looked up. Harry thought about shitting on his face for spite, but doubted that would really advance his cause.

"Yeah, I know that trick," Harry said. "You don't want to waste the effort gathering Snape's next batch of ingredients."

Malfoy shook his head. "I actually persuaded him to listen to reason, though it was hard after you destroyed his lab," he said. He paused. "Why did you do that?"

"Because of what he was doing to _you_," Harry said, with an agitated flap of his wings. He wanted to bite Snape just from thinking about it, and he had to say the words, even though he doubted that Malfoy would understand them. "You were so close to breaking free, and then you gave up and fell back into his clutches. You'll never escape them now. There'll always be some excuse, some reason to stay."

* * *

Draco had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Did Potter realize how melodramatic he sounded? Really, Severus's _clutches_? Who said that kind of thing anymore and meant it? Except transformed Gryffindors, apparently.

"I appreciate you thinking of my safety," he said. "But it's for the best if you come back in. I suggested that he was careless for not securing the lab's wards when he stepped out to…convince me, and he agreed. If he's the one at fault, then he won't punish you as badly. Although you might have to put up with a day or two of sulking." He paused and lowered his eyelashes and let his voice become reluctant. "And maybe there's something to what you say, about my never getting away from him without help. Will you come back in and try to remind me of that if I start falling under his spell again?"

Potter didn't even seem to notice the pun. He stared down with his beak open instead, and then cocked his head to the side. Draco remembered, distantly, that birds needed to do that to see people better with one eye. It probably wasn't a cute gesture that Potter had invented just to make himself seem more bird-like.

Probably.

Draco was proud of his appeal. It had some truth; he did want Potter to give him visions of a better option. It was a guard against his becoming exactly what Potter seemed to think he was, Severus's little caged bird, who didn't dare sing without permission from him or spread his wings unless it was to fly on some chore for him. If he had to leave, Potter was the one who would provide him with encouragement.

But it was also a lie, the best way to get Potter to return, by appealing to his Gryffindor instincts. Best of all, he could talk about it that way if he wanted, and Severus would simply discard it as more of his mad ramblings about Draco not being valued or wanted enough.

Potter hopped to a lower branch without taking his eyes from Draco. Then he turned his head and picked at a feather in the middle of his back with a crackling, rustling noise like flames. Draco settled on a stone bench beneath the tree and watched him. If Potter intended to make him impatient, he would learn it took more than that.

Putting up with Severus's indignities and ignorance for six years had taught Draco a lot of patience.

Potter finally turned around again and said, "Say I stay. Why should Snape help me? There's no reason for him to care about my presence the way you do." Draco bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. Perhaps he needed Potter to stay, but that was a distance from saying he _cared _about him, especially since he knew Potter wasn't a pet bird he could confess everything to without judgment. "There's no reason for him to help me after I destroyed his lab. That was one reason I was leaving. I didn't want any help from someone who'd done what he'd done to you, and that meant I didn't have to care about his lab."

Draco stared at him levelly. "I refuse to believe that you didn't enjoy pulling his books off the shelves, no matter what your motive for breaking into his lab in the first place might have been."

Potter turned away to preen again, which Draco thought was an admission. Finally Potter said, "Yes. Well. It doesn't matter, because there's no way that he would ever agree to help me again, unless I apologized. Which I won't." He gave Draco a challenging look.

"There are two reasons he should." Draco held up his fingers and watched as Potter focused on them. _Do they look like carrot sticks to him, I wonder?_ "First, as I said, he's convinced that it was his own carelessness that didn't keep the lab safe from you. He takes things to heart when they're his own fault, and won't blame you for that much. Second, he enjoys the challenge. And there's probably even a third reason. If you left in the shape of a parrot, you could still have told other wizards about us."

"I wouldn't!" Potter squawked.

"Forgive us for not believing you without the Unbreakable Vow." Draco rose to his feet and held out a commanding arm. "Will you come back inside with me now? I'll be helping Severus with the potion, so I can at least promise that it won't be poison or an acid that melts your fathers or whatever else you're afraid of."

The word _afraid _seemed to go to Potter's heart, as Draco had thought it might. He fluttered down to Draco's arm and stood there with his feathers so fluffed out that he looked much bigger than he was. "I'll go with you," he said. "And protect you from your own tendencies to surrender to Snape."

Draco smiled temperately and carried him inside. Potter hopped up to his shoulder as they went, and Draco adjusted to the weight without thinking of it.

_I could almost miss not having him around as a bird. On the other hand, if he's an Animagus, then he could become a bird again at any time once we have him back to human._

Then Draco blinked. That thought argued that he was anticipating a longer association between himself and Potter than the time needed to brew a potion could account for.

_Well, and why not? _he decided a moment later. _If I need him around, then I'll hang onto him. Be nice enough to him, and he might speak a good word for me once he goes back into the wider world. Or I might have to go with him._

The thought made him feel as if he were ripping himself up by the roots. But then again, if Severus was as hostile to him as all that, it was better to leave the cottage before the soil grew poisonous.

_That's enough of plant metaphors, _Draco told himself as he opened the door of the cottage and marched inside, Potter swaying on his shoulder and digging his claws deeper for balance. Draco winced but put up with it. _I'm a human being with a heart and a will of my own._

Both _Severus and Potter are going to find that out._

* * *

"I do not understand why you agreed to come back inside."

Severus spoke the words in a neutral tone, keeping his gaze fixed on the potion in front of him. His latest attempt to break the spell on Potter, it was a thick, clear green, and bubbled and steamed in ways that made him sure he would come closer to success than on any of his other tries. He added a bit of powdered ruby and waited until the red color it added to the potion had cleared, then glanced at Potter.

Potter squatted on a perch next to the repaired window, looking out of it. He seemed determined to ignore Severus's question, but Severus thought, in truth, that he was simply waiting to answer. Severus was more patient, however, and the silence in the lab increased until Potter at last clicked his beak in irritation and turned his head. Severus watched the bright green of his eyes and cursed himself for a fool. He should have realized that no natural African grey would look like that, and guessed at once that it was Potter.

Potter, who was always finding a way into Severus's life whether he was welcome or not. Severus had imagined he was free of that after Albus died, and he had nearly died—saved at the last moment because Draco had come back for him and known what antivenin to use—and they had managed to leave the wizarding world. But of course not. Potter was like a virus. You couldn't leave him behind for the wishing of it.

"Just in case you're doing yourself the honor of thinking I came back in for you," Potter said stiffly, "I didn't. It was for Malfoy's sake."

Severus nodded as if he cared, while adding one more flake of ruby to the potion. It turned and swirled, and then a bubble rose and popped on the brim of the cauldron. Severus took a deep breath to master his excitement. Revealing it would make Potter mock him, especially if this turned out to be another failed attempt. "I knew that. But I assumed that you would accept no help from me at all, someone whom you think makes him miserable, even if it is only in the brewing of potions."

Potter snapped his beak again. "Why are we here alone?" he asked suddenly. "Where's Malfoy?"

"Meditating," Severus said, with a sneer. He thought Draco's newfound habit ridiculous, especially since it consisted of sitting out in the garden and staring blankly at the flowers. _What is the difference in that from what he was doing before? _"He also said that he needed time alone and wanted us to try and get along. He can't always be here to defuse the quarrels we may have." He scooped up a drop of the potion in the nearest ladle and held it to the light.

_No_. A shade too dark a green. Severus was more glad than ever that he'd hidden his excitement as he returned the drop to the cauldron and considered whether he could continue to use the potion or should banish the ingredients that filled the cauldron instead. In the end, he Vanished it and began to clean the inside of the cauldron with salt in preparation for another trial.

"He acts sometimes as though we'll live together for years," Potter muttered. There was another clicking noise as he shifted on the perch, and Severus tried not to show how the sound made his shoulders stiffen. At any moment, Potter might be bored enough to slide down from his perch and go "exploring" in the lab once again. "I don't understand that. It might take you a while to find the solution, I reckon, but it won't be years."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence in my skills," Severus said, and added molten silver to the bottom of the cauldron on top of the salt. Contrary to what he had told his students in Hogwarts, cleaning a cauldron of stains and the gunk that stayed within it was not the most important task. The brewer would have to remove all trace of magical influences so that they did not interfere with the next potion. That kind of cleaning, Severus had always done himself. He could deal with Longbottom melting cauldrons if he must; he could not deal with dragons summoned into the castle, as had happened once when he was a student and Slughorn had failed to cleanse a cauldron used for brewing Amortentia.

"How in the world did you ever wind up here?" Potter asked, after another period of silence. "Why would you want to come here and live in—in _isolation_, with just Malfoy? It seems as though you would need a larger audience for the bragging rights."

Severus smiled without responding. Potter had no idea of the false name that he used to put his research out in the world, and Severus had no intention of revealing it. Potter might keep his promise according to the Unbreakable Vow they would have him swear and not tell anyone that the name belonged to Severus, but there were things he could do, especially with contacts among the Aurors, to diminish the pseudonym's reputation.

"I asked you a question!" Potter snapped, and there was the sound of feathers flying, as there often was when he shook himself in irritation. Severus ground his teeth. He would have to clean _again_ before Potter left the lab. "Why would Malfoy agree to come with you? He hadn't been tried yet. He could have escaped his parents' fate!"

Severus snorted and Vanished the mixture of silver and salt from the cauldron, then checked critically to make sure that no trace had remained behind. "Do you believe that the Wizengamot that found me guilty enough to condemn to the Dementor's Kiss, despite your memories, and Lucius and Narcissa guilty enough to warrant Azkaban, would have spared Draco? His age did not matter. Some of his contemporaries were imprisoned."

_My Slytherins. _There had been Blaise Zabini, accused of participating enthusiastically in the Carrows' torture of other students, and Pansy Parkinson, on what Severus thought was mostly a set of charges trumped-up to obscure the fact that she'd suggested throwing Potter to the Dark Lord, and even a few of the younger Slytherins. They had tortured to save their lives.

The Wizengamot did not seem to understand that.

He allowed himself to taste the bitter memories for a moment only, before he shook his head and faced Potter. He would have to cast another spell on him that would give him renewed information about Potter's capacities and magical signature as a bird—or rather, the lack of a magical signature, since his enemies' spell had worked so well. The information was necessary to construct the potion, but since he worked with a different combination of ingredients and a different theory each time, Severus had to keep renewing his "acquaintance" with Potter.

"That's—I didn't know that," Potter said, and stood on one leg as he looked up at Severus. He made a good bird, Severus thought inconsequentially. Perhaps he did not have to despise himself so much after all for not figuring out Potter's identity from the green eyes. If he had not spoken, they would not have known. "About the other Slytherins being imprisoned, I mean," he added, just as Severus was about to scold him for sheer stupidity.

"Why should you?" Severus asked levelly. "After all, the longest sentence of that nature was 'only' six months in Azkaban. And you had never been concerned with them when you were students in the same school."

Potter nearly stumbled taking his left leg out of his feathers and returning it to the perch. "That has nothing to do with it! I didn't think their crimes were that bad. I would have spoken up and defended them, if I knew."

"That is the point," Severus said, and he didn't hide the scorn in his voice. Why should Potter care about it? He was more likely to be upset about Severus daring to address him in that tone than about the students being sentenced. "You did not _have _to know about it. Whereas no one could escape your fame. And it is likely that Miss Parkinson was sentenced not for what they accused her of, but because certain powerful people remembered or heard the tale of her wanting to sacrifice you."

"I would have told them not to sentence her for that," Potter said. "If I'd known." He still sounded stunned and distant.

Severus snorted. "You testified in my case, and for Narcissa Malfoy. That did no good, either. The wizarding world was determined to have their orgy of punishment and revenge after the war." He took a deep breath and wondered why he was speaking so honestly to Potter of this. Perhaps because Draco already knew the history and Potter would refuse to absorb it in any case, so eager was he to defend the decisions of his side. It was venting for Severus's sake alone. "Well, I decided to deprive them of that in my case, and Draco's, too."

Potter stared at his claws this time, as if he found the way they gripped the perch absorbing. Severus cast the spell that would give him the information he needed about Potter, waited a moment until the whispers in his skull had ceased, and then turned to face the cauldron.

"You still could have fled on your own," Potter said from behind him. Severus worried about destroying his enamel with the grinding of his teeth. The sooner he finished the potion, the sooner Potter would be able to leave them. Did he not understand that, or did he not care? "You didn't have to take Malfoy with you. You certainly don't want him here now!"

Severus didn't respond. He owed Potter no answers about the complex feelings that had animated his own heart when he looked up and saw Draco's face staring back at him through the bars of his cell, or the ones that had touched him when he awoke after being "dead" and saw the same face hovering above him. He did not think Draco, either, would appreciate Potter learning of the tender, desperate words he had spoken, the avowals he had made.

Things had not worked out as either Severus or Draco expected. Those feelings Severus had experienced was feelings only of the moment, forever dispersed like the soap-bubbles they resembled after a certain period of time. But Potter would misunderstand and treat as wrong any information they gave him.

"Snape, are you _listening _to me? It doesn't matter what kind of hatred you're inflicting on yourself as punishment for not saving my mother. Malfoy doesn't deserve it."

Severus stood still for a moment, fingers resting on the cauldron despite the danger of leaving prints and grease. Then he turned about. Potter was leaning forwards on the perch and had to catch himself with a quick flutter when he was realized he was overextended.

"Not everything that I am and does goes back to your mother," Severus said softly. "I repaid my debt when I nearly died saving you. You have saved the world now, and no longer need my protection. For you to assume that the Potter family is still central to my life is insulting."

"But that's it, isn't it?" Potter was undaunted, although he did crane his neck to the side as if he wanted to see Severus's hands before they could swing out. "You went to Dumbledore in the first place because you felt guilty over what your reports of the prophecy did to my mum. You protected me because of her. You wanted to see my _eyes _when you were dying because of her. Are you telling me you got rid of that and it never affects you now?"

Severus decided that he would cast a spell to check his remaining enamel later. "I am healed from those psychological difficulties, yes. Or do you want me to begin a catalogue of your traits that undoubtedly date back to the war with the Dark Lord?"

Potter snorted, or made a sound that might have been a snort if he had an actual nose. "I changed my life. I was never a friendless recluse acting like I deserved to be punished for one of my sins."

"No, of course not," Severus said coolly. "If only because you did not notice the effects of your sins. Did you know that Draco suffered greatly in his childhood because of you? He had wanted your friendship. You rejected him. That was the source of much frustration for him, and for many of his reactions towards you. Do you care about that? Or would you say that he needed to grow past that reaction?"

Potter hopped sideways and flared out his tail. Severus did not know what the gesture meant. "I would say that I was sorry, that I didn't know—"

"As I said," Severus murmured. He had recovered control after his unfortunate lapse, and, in truth, was surprised at himself for losing control in the first place. "You are not required to know us. We are required to know you and understand you, first as enemy and then as hero. Your guesses about us will be _necessarily _partial, the wounds you inflict on us unnoticed." He turned back to the cauldron.

Potter said nothing. When Severus looked again, he had tucked his head into the middle of his back and stood on one leg, asleep.

Severus rolled his eyes. At least the impossible bird-brat had not flown off, which would require Severus to track him down the next time he needed the "feel" of him for a potion.

He became involved in the next concoction, then, his thoughts rising and falling to the rhythms of his hands and the currents that bubbled in the potion as he brewed it, and forgot about Potter for a long time.

* * *

Harry sat there, and thought for a long time about what Snape had said. He would have liked to deny it, but he hadn't even known about the other Slytherins sentenced to prison, and he didn't think Snape would have made that up just to fuck with him. If nothing else, Harry could ask Malfoy.

_I have to do something._

That was the reason he had ultimately left the Aurors. He could help people if he was an Auror, yes, but there were so many rules and regulations that the _ways _he could help them were severely limited. It was better to be what he had become, a private investigator who could use his Animagus form, among other tactics, to figure out the best solution in circumstances that might be really complicated or involved. Sometimes he worked with the Aurors, but those weren't his most common cases, since Harry had to hide too many details if he did something illegal.

Malfoy and Snape both needed help. Malfoy needed help in resisting Snape; that was clear, and Harry was glad to have the task, if only because it might make Malfoy freer.

But Snape? Did he need help recognizing and coming to terms with what had happened to him, or did he need help reconciling with Malfoy?

Or did he need to be able to return to the wizarding world? Would it help if Snape and Malfoy didn't feel they had to stay here forever?

Harry dug his beak further into his feathers and concentrated fiercely. He was good at solving problems. This one was complex, but he would pick it apart in the end, just like all the others.

And sure enough, before evening, he had the first idea for a solution.


	6. Words of a Wise Bird

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six—Words of a Wise Bird_

"Malfoy, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Draco looked up in surprise. He had just come into the house from tending to the garden, and his mind was still full of roses and vines, morning glories and the way to train them around the trellis, which made it hard to concentrate on what Potter was talking about. He might even have thought he was back in Hogwarts for a moment, except Potter's voice was too polite.

Potter stood on the perch that they'd installed in the drawing room, staring at him intently. Draco nodded and dropped onto the couch, stretching his arms along the back. With Severus, he would have cast a Cleaning Charm to remove the sweat and grime first, but it wasn't as though Potter could possibly care about that. "Yes. What is it? Did Severus threaten to pluck you bald again?" That had happened three days ago, apparently, the first time that Draco had left them alone in the lab together.

"Not this time." Potter shook his head in that gesture that looked so unnatural on a parrot. "I wanted to talk about you."

Draco snorted. "If this is another plea for me to leave Severus, you're forgetting I have to change slowly." He thought spending time by himself in the garden, meditating and tending the flowers, and beginning to study the esoteric magic he'd been interested in years ago was a pretty good start. At least it saved him from trailing after Severus and whining for his attention all the time.

"No," Potter said, though he sounded uncertain. "I just—" He sprang into the air and fluttered his way over to land on the couch beside Draco. Draco flinched a bit in spite of himself. He still wasn't used to having a bird of Potter's size flying at him. "Snape was talking to me about other Slytherin students who've been arrested after the war."

Draco frowned in confusion. "You do get on the strangest topics," he said.

"Snape intended to torment me with guilt," Potter said, stretching out a leg and then turning it into a whole-body stretch with both wings extended one at a time. Draco watched in fascination. He wasn't used to _anything _about Potter the bird yet, including all his movements. "I'm more bothered that I never knew."

Draco shrugged. "The sentences were short, for the most part. I'm sure they're all out by now. No reason for you to have known or interfered."

"I should have," Potter said, but he went on before Draco could ask what _that _meant. Everyone knew he hadn't been sympathetic to Slytherins in school. Did he imagine that Pansy and the rest had sat in their Azkaban cells dreaming of his interference? "Snape seemed more affected by their imprisonment than I realized."

Draco smiled wryly. "Potions master is by far the biggest part of him, but there was no _reason _that he needed to accept being the Head of Slytherin House if he didn't want to. There have been Heads in the past who weren't part of their House as students."

"But I bet Snape thought no one else in the school would do a good job at the time he accepted the post," Potter said, bobbing his head up and down.

That startled a laugh out of Draco. "See how well you already know him," he said. "That's exactly what he told me about his reasons for accepting."

"Hmmm." Potter walked in a small circle. "Would you say that he only brought up the imprisonment of those students to affect me and get me to shut up? Or would you say that he feels there's an actual injustice there that should be remedied?" He slid his neck to the side. "Would Snape have helped them if he could have stayed in the wizarding world, if the Wizengamot had acquitted him?"

"_Only _doesn't apply to Severus very often," Draco said dryly, "whether it's in discussions of his motives or anything else. I'm sure he brought it up for both reasons. But yes, I do think that he would have tried to help Pansy and the rest if he was free to do so at the time, especially since they were arrested after he was and he didn't know anything about it until we'd fled. Fuck, I would have."

Potter stared at him with his beak parted and long grey tongue showing. Then he shut it and bobbed his head again. "That's bloody decent of you, Malfoy."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Why the interrogation? Were you that bothered by not paying attention to every detail of the arrests? We heard about your sickness, you know. I didn't expect you to make my mother's trial to testify, and you looked awful when you did. It's hardly surprising that you missed some of the news."

Potter froze in the act of shaking his tail.

* * *

Harry hated thinking about the three months immediately after the war, when he had drifted in and out of a strange sickness that the Healers couldn't name or cure. Sometimes he would be almost fine, if weak; other times he was lost in feverish dreams and thought waking was another dream. He knew people, and then he didn't. He could walk by himself, and then only with someone's support or leaning against a wall. He heard Dumbledore's voice explaining the circumstances of his death to him and Voldemort's voice whispering and shrieking and cackling, and then he didn't.

Hermione had looked through book after book and finally told Harry, teary-eyed, that she thought it came from being dead. "There's only one case that's similar to it, and that's a witch who was briefly brought back to life after her heart stopped beating," she said, sitting on Harry's bed in Grimmauld Place and clutching both his hands. "She had the fever and the weakness and the dreams, too. It doesn't say she heard the voices, but I don't think she told her Healers everything. Oh, _Harry!_" And she'd flung her arms around him and clutched him tight.

Harry had held her back and shut his eyes. He'd known without asking that Hermione was afraid because the witch had died.

But the illness began to wane after the third month, and Harry was finally able to get back to what he had wanted to do from the beginning: testify at the Death Eater trials and enter the Auror program. Neither of those had worked out the way he wanted them to, but Harry had been working on becoming an Animagus at the same time, and that had made his life richer and compensated for some of the disappointments.

Now, Malfoy had reminded him…

Harry knew, though, that Malfoy had no idea what the illness had really been or why thinking about it was hard for Harry. Only Ron and Hermione knew what had actually happened when Harry walked into the forest to meet Voldemort, and Harry intended to keep it that way.

He came back to himself and craned his neck up to see Malfoy. "I should still have tried to find out," he said quietly. "If I was the hero I liked to think of myself as, then I should have tried."

Malfoy laughed aloud. Harry flinched automatically from the loudness of the laughter, but then relaxed and sat beside Malfoy. He was sure that he made Malfoy and Snape flinch more often than that from his screeches.

"Are you looking for reassurance?" Malfoy asked, chuckling. "That you are some kind of hero after all, even if your own conscience says you aren't? You won't find it here."

"No, of course not," Harry said, and sat on one leg to look more relaxed than he actually was. It was harder to lie as a bird; his body often reacted before he thought about what was happening. "So. You think Snape cared for his students, if not as much as he cared for his brewing."

"Yes." Malfoy looked wistful for a moment, started to open his mouth, and then pinched his lips into a thin line.

"Pretend I'm an ordinary bird," Harry suggested softly, "if that would make it easier for you to talk with me." He had tricked dozens of confessions out of criminals by looking cute and sweet and harmless, and got plenty of information by being the only audience that someone could talk to most of the time. He wasn't going to use this information against Malfoy in the same way, but he did think Malfoy needed a listener.

Malfoy licked his lips and leaned back against the couch, taking his face further away, which was the opposite of the way it usually worked. But then he spoke, voice choked, and Harry knew he had taken the invitation after all. "I used to think Severus cared for me like that. I don't think it anymore."

"Why do you think he changed his mind?" Harry scratched the back of his head and tried to look as if he was less interested in Malfoy's words than he really was. It would probably encourage him to talk more. "There could be lots of reasons, of course, but which do you think is the most likely one?"

Malfoy sighed. "I don't think he changed his mind. I think I fooled myself, and he only pretended to what he thought would get him out of prison and into the open."

Harry pressed briefly against his elbow, hoping that the brush of his feathers might reassure Malfoy. "But he must have cared for you a little, to put up with you for years and become your lover, right?"

Malfoy shook his head. "Even that might have been convenience. I was with him, and if he'd sent me back to the wizarding world, I could have betrayed his location. And as for becoming my lover—he's told me his right hand is a better lover."

Harry choked, and then ducked his head to attend to his breast feathers. The more he learned about Snape, the stranger it seemed that the man hadn't self-destructed as the result of all the bitterness and spite in his body coming to a boil at once.

_Maybe someone should arrange that he should._

But the wistfulness in Malfoy's face argued against it. Strange as it seemed, someone, somewhere, had managed to come up with genuine love for Snape. Harry wasn't going to try and take away that love unless Malfoy managed to overcome it enough to leave Snape.

_I want to help them both. But if I can only help one, my priority's going to be Malfoy._

"I'm sure that's wrong," he said, when he felt safe to talk again instead of simply flapping off down the corridor to the lab and trying to bite off Snape's fingers one by one. "I'm sure you're a good lover."

Malfoy turned his face and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you would know about that, would you? Had a lot of boyfriends?"

Harry felt the temptation to freeze again. But this was only teasing, it wasn't a reference to something that he felt was a personal weakness, and so he felt free to spread his wings. "It's not that," he said. "It's just that you actually think about other people, unlike Snape. That must make you a good lover, unless you do things like stab them in the eye with your penis all the time."

Malfoy laughed again. Harry was ready for it this time, and half-hoped that Snape was hearing it in his lab. _When was the last time you made him laugh like that? Think about what it means that someone who's trapped in a bird's body and who last argued like a child with Malfoy when he saw him, can make him laugh, and you can't, you dried-up stick of evil._

"Compassion and care for others has less to do with being a good lover than you think," Malfoy said. "If you do manage to draw Severus's attention, then…" He sighed in longing. "You don't know what he can do when he brings his focus to you. Imagine being the center of all the fixation he has on potions."

Harry didn't want to imagine it, partially because this was _Snape_, but also partially because he'd had enough of attention during his life, thank you. "Anyway. I think you must still be a better lover than he is."

Malfoy gave him a smile that quirked sideways. "It's too bad that you aren't in a human body, or we could test that."

_I have to stop freezing like this. _Luckily, this time Harry found another retort that should make Malfoy laugh and take his mind from any dangerous implication. "And then, what, for comparison's sake I could kiss Snape? No, thanks. The closest I ever want to come to his mouth is as a bird, when I might bite his tongue since he refuses to do it himself."

"We'll have to agree to disagree," Malfoy said, waving a hand. "And you'll have to accept that, in this case, I have more experience than you do." He cast a glance down the corridor that led to the lab, his emotions shifting again. "Not that it really matters, when Severus doesn't know or care that I'm alive."

"He stopped you from leaving, didn't he?" _Even though he shouldn't have._ Harry was just glad the subject of the conversation had changed away from kissing Snape. He had enough nightmares without that.

"Yes, he did," Malfoy said thoughtfully. "I wish I could be sure about his motives for doing so, but it's its own sign of hope." He hesitated for a moment, then said, "And you think I ought to leave him?"

"If he doesn't change," Harry said. _More hopeful than ever. _He would have liked to hop up on Malfoy's shoulder and run his beak through his hair, but people who weren't used to that tended to flinch and try to hit him. Besides, Malfoy was leaning too far against the back of the couch to make it practical. "I reckon it's possible he might."

"I don't know if I should think too much about that or not," Malfoy said, and rested his head back against the couch with a sigh. "It might persuade me to stay when I would be better off going."

Harry nodded, and then they sat there in gloomy silence until Malfoy cleared his throat and turned further back to face him. "Well, that's something we can't do anything about right now. What's something we can?"

"Do you have a Pensieve?" Harry asked. "And can I borrow your wand?"

The questions were worth asking even without positive answers, for the sheer look of befuddlement on Malfoy's face.

* * *

Severus stepped around the corner into the drawing room and narrowed his eyes. Usually, by this time of the evening, Draco was in his room reading and Potter was dozing in his cage. Severus had looked forwards to having the drawing room largely to himself so that he could get on with some of the research that he needed to do on Animagi.

Instead, he could hear both of their voices from the garden, and sitting alone on the table in the middle of the drawing room was Draco's large, silvery Pensieve.

Severus walked up to it, examining the sides. Yes, he could see the light scores that a parrot's claws might have left in the metal. The baffling thing was why Draco would have let Potter see or use it.

The Pensieve was full of brimming silver memory. Severus cast several spells that would identify other liquids mixed with it or curses on the Pensieve itself, and encountered nothing. He decided that he was foolish to fear Draco, as cowed as he was ordinarily, striking back at him in this fashion. Potter might have, but since Potter could not have used the Pensieve by himself, Draco would easily have prevented him from leaving a trap.

_Then what it is here for?_

Severus walked several times around the Pensieve, looking for signs of a more subtle nature, and still there was nothing. He finally sat down on the couch in front of the Pensieve and locked the door that led from the house into the garden with a negligent wave of his wand. Draco could still pass through it with a bit of work, but the noise should warn Severus and give him time to withdraw from the memories.

In the end, the only way he could learn why this had been left here—for him; Draco would not have been careless enough to leave private memories out—was to lower his head and enter them.

The usual odd sensations came and went in the back of his head, and then Severus found himself standing in the middle of a dungeon corridor, watching as he lectured Potter and his two friends. Judging from their size, they were in fourth year or thereabouts. Severus would have been disturbed he could not remember the incident himself, but there had been too many cases like this.

Severus moved up around the group, wondering what he was supposed to find or see. There were mutinous expressions on the faces of the three children, no surprise there. And he himself looked as he always did. This did not seem to be a time when Potter had got some surprising and unnoticed revenge on Severus.

When his past self had turned and strode away, the Weasley brat said bitterly, hands clenched into fists, "What a bastard!"

Old instincts died hard; Severus had opened his mouth to take points for language before he remembered that this was a memory. Luckily, the Granger girl seemed to agree with his opinion, since she frowned at the boy and said, "Well, there's no need to talk about him like that, Ron."

"But he _is_," Weasley said, and began marching down the corridor in the opposite direction, which Severus presumed led to Gryffindor Tower, as if he intended to meet Severus on the way and pound him to pulp. "Don't you think so, Harry?"

Potter said nothing. He looked pale and shaky, and Severus mentally corrected his estimation of the time. This still looked like the brat's fourth year, but something had just happened, perhaps the confrontation with Crouch, Jr., that rendered Potter less likely to speak up than usual.

"Harry?" Weasley was grabbing Potter's arm and looking at him with truly disgusting solicitousness.

"I just think there are some things about him we don't really understand," Potter said shortly, and shook off Weasley's hand, and strode ahead.

The memory blurred, a clear indication of its ending and a passage to another memory, and Severus laughed, though he was the only one who would hear. Potter had wished him to see a moment when he had defended Severus in such a lukewarm fashion? Why? Severus would hardly come to think that he was right for that reason, or treat him in a more good-natured manner.

_More likely this is a ritual to assuage his own guilt, which would have arisen in him when I told him about the imprisoned students he did not care enough to save._

The next memory showed Potter alone, sitting on a bed and staring at a book in his arms. Severus glanced around, noting that he was in the Gryffindor boys' bedroom, and then stepped to the side so that he could read the title of the book. Potter looked older than in the prior memory; he might have been sixteen or seventeen.

The book, to Severus's surprise, was an ordinary Potions textbook, which there was no reason for Potter to look at as if it was precious. But then Potter turned the page, and Severus saw his own handwriting slashing across the paper as though he had made his nervous, defiant proclamation aloud.

_This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince._

Severus narrowed his eyes. Yes, he remembered the _Sectumsempra _curse that Potter had used on Draco now. What surprised him was that the boy would be obsessively tracing his finger over the words on the page, the words that gave Severus's ridiculous name, going back to the beginning when he was finished. If this was before the incident in the bathroom, Severus would have expected Potter to be investigating the spells; if after, flinging the book from him in horror.

But then Potter proved that it was even later in the sixth year than Severus had thought, because he whispered, "How can you possibly be Snape? _How_? When you seemed so smart and complex and—and someone who _understood_."

Severus froze, his heart pounding. Yes, he had told Potter that he was the Half-Blood Prince when he and Draco fled Hogwarts at the end of Potter and Draco's sixth year. He had been driven to it by offended pride that Potter would attempt to use his spells, and by a desire to destroy the value that Potter placed on the book. At least, if he couldn't hold Potter down and yank the knowledge of Severus's personal magic forcibly from his head, he could make sure that it was tainted.

But it hadn't worked. Potter still gazed at the words as if he liked them, as if they offered up a secret of some kind, and his brow was furrowed with what looked like painful puzzlement. He leaned back on the pillow and whispered again, though Severus was standing close enough to the boy to hear the words clearly.

"You had enemies. I knew that. You came up with spells that would defend you against them. Well, fine. I'd do the same thing, if I could use my wand during the summers.

"But I never thought you would be—_you_. I just thought you were a pure-blood from the beginning. I thought you—I mean, the Prince—had to know some of the same things I did, because I had a Muggleborn mother, too. And then it turns out that you're such a different person, or two different people, and I can't separate one from the other."

He fell silent, still frowning. The blurring this time came up and shoved Severus along to another memory before he could decide what in the world Potter had wanted him to see that one for. It was a moment of weakness and stupidity only, of no value to anyone save Potter's foes.

Well, and perhaps the newspapers. But submitting such a story, even anonymously, would draw more attention to Severus than he liked.

The third memory showed Potter sitting up in his bed in the Gryffindor room again, but this time he was very much the young man Severus had seen when he thought he was dying, with Lily's eyes and a face marked by war. He was frowning at Granger, who shook her head and said, "I'm not lying, Harry. Snape really is alive. Someone found him in time and gave him the antivenin. A few people said it was Malfoy, but I'm not sure about that."

Potter drew up his knees in front of himself and wrapped his arms around them like a child. Severus waited eagerly for the breakdown or the temper tantrum that would follow at the news of his escape from death.

But instead Potter whispered only, "I'm glad."

Severus could not have been more stunned if Potter had tried to apologize for peering into his Pensieve during his fifth year. Granger couldn't seem to believe it, either. She leaned nearer and said, "What, Harry?"

Potter turned to her. "He was a hero," he said simply. "He saved us all."

The memory ended, and this time Severus found himself able to draw his head out of the Pensieve without being pushed to another. He sat still, frowning, trying to find commonalities between the three memories and seeing none. The last two could perhaps be vulnerable moments, taunting material, but the second much less so, and the first was something that would matter to no one but Potter.

"I was trying to make you see that you have good qualities."

Severus started badly. Potter sat on the ledge of the window, which of course Severus had not locked, looking him calmly in the eye. That he had to turn a moment later and pick at an itch under his wing did not improve Severus's temper.

"Do you seriously think that I did not believe in my intelligence, my bravery, my _complexity _until you told me?" Severus asked coolly. "Do you think that I am yet another fool who requires you to validate my existence?"

Potter lifted his head and gave Severus a look he probably imagined he was noble, though on a parrot it came closer to being cross-eyed. "I think you didn't realize I thought that about you, that anyone other than yourself could. Because, after all, you disregard Malfoy's opinion."

And he flew back into the garden, leaving Severus sitting still for longer than he wished to, nearly paralyzed with anger.


	7. Freedom and Flight

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_Chapter Seven—Freedom and Flight_

Draco lay in his own bed that night and stretched his arms out until his hands brushed the edges of the sheets. Then he turned over and buried his face into the single pillow. He didn't have to worry about someone close to him snorting into his hair and mumbling into his ear, the way that Severus tended to do in the early morning.

He had missed the sex. Draco could admit that freely. Severus wasn't a beautiful man, but he was a _controlled _one, in absolute charge of his body, able to move it in ways that wouldn't have occurred to someone younger than he was. Draco had wanted to share his bed far more frequently than Severus had let him in the past few years.

But had he missed the other things? The way Severus slept so close, his arm flung across Draco's throat, his body twisted right on top of Draco?

It had taken him this long to realize it, but Draco had to shake his head slowly. No, that was something it hadn't occurred to him to miss. Why should he? Severus had made it clear that he considered closeness a problem, and they'd had separate bedrooms for so long now that it was difficult for Draco to remember whose bed they'd last _slept _in together, as opposed to had sex in. Severus had said the separate bedrooms would be good for them, giving them each their own space.

Draco smiled faintly, derisively, but it was more for his childish self, the one who had always believed Severus unquestioningly, than for Severus. Draco had known Severus for what he was when he was still in school: selfish, passionate only in pursuit of what he wanted. Draco hadn't been one of those things for a long time now.

He couldn't blame someone for being a Slytherin, or he would have had to blame himself.

Draco rolled over again and stared up at the ceiling. He had thought that the last few days would make him realize how much he missed Severus, because he'd been spending time apart from him and doing things that didn't involve him—meditating, gardening, studying subjects that had nothing to do with Potions, eating meals alone or in Potter's company. Draco had hoped the schedule of activities would teach him what he could put up with and what he would have to demand would change.

Instead, it had taught him…

What? That he could be happy on his own?

Draco nodded slowly. Yes, it had showed him that.

Of course, he still hadn't been alone, because Potter was with him. Draco didn't think he was ready for absolute solitude yet. And in the wide world beyond the cottage, there were a very limited number of people who would be willing to spend time with him. Even his old school friends, doubtless still watched by the Ministry, wouldn't want to risk drawing their attention by taking Draco in.

So, if he wanted to be apart from Severus and learn more about this strange resilience he had thought crushed out of him years ago, where could he go?

That was the crux of the problem, and what had kept Draco from leaving whenever he thought about it before. Well, he had to admit, that and inherent laziness. The very fact that he had revived so quickly when Potter came around meant that he'd never been as hopeless and helpless as he'd thought. He'd liked to think he was because it was easier than doing something that would actually change the situation.

"I'm just admitting all sorts of things about myself this evening," Draco muttered, but it was all right because no one was around to hear.

All right. He needed company, and he needed a place to live where he could fairly easily get books, food, and other necessities and yet go unnoticed by the authorities. Where?

When the answer first came to him, Draco snorted and turned it away. But it stood there like an insistent visitor, knocking at the gates of his mind until Draco lowered his defenses and let it in.

_Why _not _Potter's house?_

There was really no reason, when he thought about it in more detail. He could do things to pay for his upkeep: brewing any potions Potter needed, cooking meals that were probably better than what Potter got on his own, teaching him a bit of esoteric magical theory (assuming that he wanted to learn).

And, now that he understood more about Potter and the kind of person he was, Draco thought it highly likely that Potter would probably let Draco stay in his house for free, at least until he could come up with some more permanent solution. Convincing the Ministry that he was innocent, perhaps.

Draco tried to pull his imagination back into bounds. _You have absolutely no reason to think that will happen. Calm down and focus on what you can actually do._

But he had told himself that for years, buried his dreams and his hopes to try and retain Severus's attention, and now they seemed to have grown too thick to be denied. They burst out, and Draco saw himself free to walk the streets of the wizarding world again, if not respected the way his family once had been. He could create a career of sorts for himself. There would always be people who found a touch of danger would add to their purchases—in this case, buying their potions from an acquitted criminal—and Draco knew he could do things with potions that, if not as spectacular as Severus's skills, would at least decently stand up against them.

He could try. If he failed, then he would think of something else. But he thought Potter would help him.

And with Potter by his side, he wouldn't be alone.

_Who knew it was as simple as asking for help? _Draco thought in wonder, burrowing back down under the sheets of his lovely, lonely bed and closing his eyes. _I'll wait until Severus changes him back to human, but after that, we're going. Severus can make up his own mind about what he wants to do after that, but since he'll have the solitude that he's always wanted, I don't see why he should care._

* * *

"I have finished the potion."

Severus had expected a more astounded reaction to his announcement than the one he received, which was Potter cocking his head to the side to study him with a single bright eye and Draco looking up from his book.

"Have you?' Draco asked after a moment, during which Severus had the impression that they had both waited for Potter to speak and both been disappointed. "Well, good. Are you ready to use it, or does it need to steep?" He snapped his book shut and glanced over at Potter, who was scratching energetically at the back of his head now.

"It is ready to use," Severus said, and turned around as Potter's wings opened. But he only flew across the room from his perch to Draco's shoulder and settled there, folding his wings the next moment. Draco looked as startled as Severus felt, and then considerably more pleased.

Severus frowned. _Were it not an impossibility, given the way that Potter must depend on us in his bird shape, I would say that Draco is coming to depend on him. _But he shook away the strange thought and turned back to his lab.

He heard the noise of Draco following, but no wings flapping. Potter must be riding on Draco's shoulder.

That should not have troubled him. Why did it trouble him? It was the sort of thing that a parrot would do, and Severus knew that the instincts grew stronger and more insistent the longer one was in Animagus form. Potter had spent at least a fortnight in his, and that was only if one counted from the time of his arrival at Severus and Draco's home. It made sense that he would want to ride on a human's shoulder and save himself the trouble of flight.

But the trouble remained as Severus stepped into the lab, picked up the vial of gently dancing purple-pink potion, and turned around.

Potter waited until Draco had crossed the threshold of the lab and then spread his wings, soaring across the room to land in front of Severus on the perch they'd put up for him. At the height of the perch, he and Severus were nearly eye to eye. Potter cocked his head at him. "Ready?" he asked.

"You will fall off the perch when you begin to change," Severus said.

"I won't fall far," Potter said. "And I don't think you'd be willing to have me on the counter, either, or willing to bend down and feed it to me while I was standing on the floor."

"I would," Draco said.

Potter turned his head and looked at Draco, while Severus narrowed his eyes and tried to figure out which was stronger: his surprise that Draco was making this offer, or his anger.

"All right," Potter said, and flew over and landed on the lab floor in front of Draco before Severus could make so much as a noise of protest. He spread his wings and held them out as if for balance while gazing up at Draco.

Draco stared back as he took up the vial of potion and knelt, and then smiled. Severus frowned. There was once again a swell of emotion in him, as there had been when he fucked Draco, as there had been when he heard Draco was leaving, that he did not understand and did not want to understand.

Potter drank the potion, though there was a long second when Severus thought Draco might not be able to force the flared lip of the vial past the constrictions of Potter's beak. Then Potter swallowed it, craning his head back and forth, tongue flipping and flapping at the air. Draco took a step away and put the vial on the table behind him.

There was a slight storm of smoke from the edges of Potter's beak. Severus waited.

"How did you finally manage to create a potion that would take care of a spell you couldn't detect?" Draco asked quietly.

"I looked for disturbances in the natural magic around him," Severus said, gratified that at least one other person was interested in the process. "The spell, to protect itself, generated a small field of nothingness. It welled around Potter and created a minute disturbance in the wards and the other permanent spells we have set about the house. I noticed it when I increased the wards in my lab—"

There was a single bright snapping sound, as though someone had broken a brass plate, and then Potter screeched cheerfully. Severus watched closely, knowing that the potion should have forced the spell to end, but not sure what would happen next.

Potter's parrot body elongated, and then became flatter and more hunched. Severus found himself having to look away during some of the moments when it stretched, but he had the impression that Draco watched all the way through, though perhaps with his breath coming out in small pants and gags.

When Severus turned back, it was to see a naked Potter rising to his feet, shaking the familiar, hated dark hair back from his face. He nodded to them and said, "Thank you."

Severus blinked. He could not say that he would have recognized Potter without the distinctive features of shaggy hair and green eyes. His scar had faded to almost a line under his fringe, his body was considerably taller and more slender and more scarred than when Severus had last seen him, and his skin had the dark flush of someone who spent most of his time outside. He also looked half-starved, though Severus knew that came from spending most of his time as a parrot with people who had not cared well for him.

He found his eyes wandering down and took them away with a frown. Draco, beside him, continued to watch Potter avidly.

Potter seemed to notice and smiled back at Draco before he held up his right hand and closed his eyes. A frown of concentration worked its way over his face before he announced, "_Accio _wand."

Severus felt a current of power ripple out from Potter, spring through their wards, and earth itself somewhere a long way away. A moment later, something answered it and came flying towards the house.

"I couldn't take the wand with me when I became a parrot, just in case they suspected something and made me change back," Potter explained. He was stretching his arms over his head and looking at his hands in wonder, as though it would take him some time to get used to having them again, instead of wings. "We knew they were smart enough to use the spells that would give them an idea of a wizard's power level if he and his wand were together. Separated, they would know I could perform magic, but not how much."

"They would know _you_," Draco pointed out, gesturing towards the scar on Potter's forehead. He still hadn't taken his eyes from Potter's naked body, Severus saw, and that brought another burst of emotion on in his chest. "And they would know that you're quite powerful."

Potter shook his head, a sly smile curling his lips. That was one way in which Severus did not find him an improvement over the parrot: his ability to wear expressions like that. Severus could have gone quite happily from one end of his life to the others without ever seeing Potter smile that way. "There are plenty of people who've thought since the war that I'm not _that _powerful, or I would have been able to defeat Voldemort with something other than an _Expelliarmus._ And I've encouraged those people to think that, and spread rumors and write articles."

Severus did not have time to respond, because Potter's wand came through the wards and swirled down into the grasp of Potter's hand.

"All right," Potter said, and turned around to face Severus and Draco. "I assume that you want me to make the Unbreakable Vow? And for Malfoy to be our Bonder?" He dropped to one knee in the center of the lab, never taking his eyes from Severus's face, as if he assumed that Severus would tell him from his expression how severe the Vow had to be.

Severus nodded once and drew his own wand. He did not like many things: Potter's face, the way that Draco had never looked away from Potter yet, the way that Potter seemed so comfortable naked…

Or the way that he was in danger of reacting, with a lithe, beautiful young man in front of him, the only person other than Draco whom he had seen naked for six years.

* * *

Harry waited patiently, keeping inside the small, mean smile that wanted to appear. He knew his nakedness disconcerted Snape, and so did Malfoy's reaction. Harry would go on milking them for all they were worth, at least until after the Unbreakable Vow was over and he had no reason to do so anymore.

Snape seemed to realize, finally, that the best way to get this over with was to get the Vow over with. He knelt in front of Harry and held out his hand. Harry clasped it willingly. He would have expected the hand to be slimy and the fingers as scaly and greasy as Snape's hair a few weeks ago, but he had had time enough to observe the careful way Snape handled his potions.

The hand just felt like a hand, if dryer than usual. Harry glanced up and nodded to Malfoy. "You need your wand out," he said.

Malfoy flushed, blinked, mumbled, and pulled out the hawthorn wand. Harry watched it through half-closed eyes and felt a pulse of familiar magic when it settled on top of his and Snape's joined hands. Well, he _had _used it several times. Perhaps this was the wand's way of greeting him.

"Will you promise never to tell anyone of the place Draco and I have made for ourselves here, or the way to find it?" Snape asked harshly, his voice a dry gust on Harry's face. Maybe he was withered up on the inside as well as the outside, Harry thought, meeting his eyes. Maybe there was nothing soft or warm about him.

"I will," Harry responded.

The first tongue of fire appeared, encircling both their hands, and gave Harry all the heat he could have wanted when it tickled, not quite burning, the small hairs on the back of his hand. He held in the grunt that he wanted to give, never looking away from Snape.

"Will you vow never to betray our existence to anyone, or our escaped state, or our defenses, or our current freedom, except as we may direct and desire?" Snape demanded.

"I will," Harry said, and the second tongue of fire joined the first. The wand shook a little, Harry noticed, and, when he glanced to the side, he saw that Malfoy had the strangest expression on his face. He had no idea why, though, so he shrugged and let it go.

"Will you promise not to bring harm to us by any direct or indirect route, at the instigation of anyone other than ourselves?" Snape asked.

Harry bit his tongue to hold back the laughter as he thought about the devious ways Snape's mind worked. He could understand why they might someday want Harry to talk about them to the outside world, but not why they might someday want Harry to do harm.

"I will," he said, when he was sure he wouldn't laugh, and the third tongue of fire appeared to complete the knot. They held still for a moment more, until the fire shimmered and vanished, and Harry released Snape's hand and stood up, gratefully flexing his fingers.

"If you could lend me a few clothes and lower the wards for me, I'll be on my way," he said.

"I'm coming with you," Malfoy said quietly.

Harry felt a jerk of feeling in the center of his stomach, and couldn't have named it. But what he saw most clearly, at least in the moment before he turned around to face Malfoy, was the flash of murderous rage that crossed Snape's face.

* * *

Draco licked his lips. He had to hold to his purpose in the face of Severus's anger, and that was always easier said than done. But he had not only his own determination but the approval and welcome in Potter's face to encourage him.

"Are you sure?" Potter asked, before Severus could say anything. "I know that you were going to try to work on him. And he at least looked at those memories I gave him the other day, though I don't know what he made of them."

"You will not speak of me as though I do not stand here," Severus said, and his words cut across the ones Draco had planned to say.

Potter blinked at him. "Out of all the things happening here," he said softly, "you're the most worried about _that_?"

Severus went still. Draco knew that stillness hid vulnerability, as well as a determination not to let anyone see the vulnerability which he would hide as fiercely. He had been taken off-guard by Potter's words, and this might be the only moment Draco would have to make an impression of his own, past that initial second of surprise when he had announced his desire.

"You were right about me," Draco said.

Severus turned towards him, and both of them ignored Potter's inarticulate noise of protest, though Draco, at least, was aware of it. He met Severus eye to eye and stared back at him with a courage that he had long since thought he'd lost.

But then, that was the problem. It had been easier to think of the qualities like courage as lost rather than buried, because if he thought of them _that _way, then he would have been responsible for digging them up again.

"You were right that I was more childish than you are," Draco said steadily. "I gave up my responsibilities too easily. I thought I knew what life would be like here, but I really didn't, and then I blamed you for the difference between my dreams and the reality, instead of changing either the reality or my dreams. I mistook a crush and physical affection for love.

"I do think that I'm in love with you now. I could never have put up with what I have for as long as I have without that. But my dreams are more important to me, the same way that brewing is more important to you than I am."

Severus made a single violent gesture, as though reaching out to reclaim something, but when Draco paused and waited courteously, he said nothing. Draco nodded and went on. He had suspected that Severus would hesitate.

"So I've taken charge of my life now, and I know that I can live with Potter for a time, with his help, and hopefully reestablish myself in the wizarding world, again with his help. It'll take a long time, but now I'm more prepared for what my life will be like, instead of dreaming up this childish vision that I cling to long after I realize that it won't and can't be fulfilled.

"I'll swear an Unbreakable Vow if you like, also promising not to betray you. Potter can be our Bonder."

He stopped speaking. Severus stood there in heated silence for long moments, all eyes for him, and none for Potter. Draco had to admit that he found that gratifying. As he had admitted to Potter, having Severus's complete attention was heady.

Then Severus cleared his throat and said, "I do not wish you to leave."

"But why?" Draco demanded. "I told you that you were right. I'm too childish to live with you. I'm trying to change that, but not _for _you. For myself. It would be a long time, if ever, before I would make you a good companion. And I want out of this house, I want more company, I want to _live._ Do you want that?"

Severus's left hand closed into a fist, though the right remained still. Draco wondered if Potter had noticed. Perhaps not, with the way he seemed to attend to both of their faces at once and the angle he was standing at.

"I wish to continue to exist," Severus said. "Yes. Of course."

Draco shook his head, irritated. He hated it when Severus pretended to be stupid, to miss the nuances in words that he probably saw more of than anyone else. "I don't _mean _that. I mean, do you want to live in the wider world, with more people around you, and grow instead of stagnate? You're happy brewing your potions. You're happy with the way that things are. Isn't that true?"

Severus inclined his head. "But I would—" he said, and then halted so abruptly that Draco knew he had cut the words off because they would reveal too much of himself.

Draco tilted his head. It occurred to him for the first time that, although Severus might know exactly what he wanted as far as his skills and activities were concerned, he might not understand himself as well. Maybe the man Draco loved, had seen glimpses of, and had constructed an imaginary picture of was still there, beneath the surface of the sure, calm, centered Potions master.

"Yes?" he asked. He made his voice encouraging. Severus still deserved a chance.

* * *

_Draco expects me to speak such words in front of Potter._

Severus could not forget the audience. He could not forget that Draco had pushed him to this, and that he was being forced to discover new things about himself, new emotions, new gestures, not in decent privacy and over a decent length of time, but in a crowded room and all at once.

He had not understood himself when he prevented Draco from leaving, but he had thought that he would have months or years to come to terms with that action, and so he had not greatly feared. Now he had to fear what would happen if he said the wrong thing. He had to fear Potter's loud laughter and Draco's contempt.

He had to fear Draco's leaving.

Severus brought his face up and shook his head. He locked his emotions far beneath the surface. If Draco wanted to revel in his humiliation, Severus would deny him at least that much. "I would have you leave, of course," he said, voice deep and cold and polished as frosted iron, "if you feel that you cannot live here."

Draco didn't try to hide the pain in his eyes, and Severus sneered at him. Yes, he _had _forgotten their audience. There was no other excuse for his behavior.

Potter reached out a hand, and it came to a rest on Draco's shoulder. Severus turned on him. Their lives would not have changed if Potter had not stumbled through the wards, and he could only think that was a good thing.

"I want you gone within the hour," he said.

"That's not a problem," Potter said, still calm and unworried by his own nakedness. Severus did not understand that. He would not have been able to rest until he was covered. Why should Potter be stronger than him in any way, including this one? "I can just borrow some clothes from Malfoy—he's closer to my size than you are, anyway—and help him pack his things. We'll be gone in your hour."

When Severus turned back to Draco, he had repaired his façade. He had a look of chill pride in his eyes, in fact, that Severus had not seen in years.

"Good-bye, Severus," he said, and followed Potter out of the lab.

Severus stood in the center of the lab, thinking, and foresaw how it would be. Potter would seduce Draco. They would live together, and Potter would make Draco into his toy that he could take out when he wanted and leave behind when he wanted. Draco would lose his useful skills—study, research, brewing—and become the shallow socialite he had once vowed to Severus he would rather leave with him than chance becoming.

They would be lovers.

The wards on the lab meant that neither of the traitors would be able to hear the vials that shattered against the walls a moment later.


	8. Introducing the Outside World

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—Introducing the Outside World_

Potter didn't say a word until they were in the middle of packing up Draco's trunks. From the swift, expert movements of his wand, Draco reckoned that he'd done it before, and fairly often, too. Draco opened his mouth to ask about that, but Potter spoke first.

"You're sure about this?" he asked quietly, his attention seemingly fastened on a blanket that he was crushing carefully into place atop a pillow. He considered the result, shook his head, and shrank the whole bundle, which was what Draco would have done in the first place. "You won't change your mind in a moment and go crawling back to Snape, will you?"

Draco glared. He had made the decision to go with Potter of his own free will, that had taken a _lot _of courage, but it seemed that Potter only existed to disparage his choices. "I've never crawled," he settled for saying, with immense dignity.

"You were doing a pretty good imitation of it when I came here."

Draco drew himself up. "I wonder if our living together is going to work after all," he said. His breathing was quick from hurt, and he had to turn his gaze away. It had felt so wonderful to have someone on _his _side, for once. Now he had to wonder whether Potter had only been there so as long as there was a chance to rescue Draco.

"I didn't mean…" Potter said, and there was a long, awkward silence, during which they both kept packing. The more dispassionate part of Draco noted that least they could work together. Perhaps that would be all that was required.

But when Draco thought of living in a house on his own, before the curious, disapproving gaze of the wizarding world, he knew that he couldn't do it yet. He would have to rely on Potter for shelter for some time, no matter how distasteful the notion.

"Listen," Potter said.

Draco hunched his shoulders and flicked his head a bit to say that listening, if it happened, would be at his discretion.

"I'm sorry," Potter said, surprising Draco so much that he stopped packing and turned his head to gape. Potter was standing with his eyes on the ground, his hands in his pockets, and a frown turning the corners of his mouth. "I didn't think before I said that. I watched you change your mind once, and that has me paranoid." He looked up. "But you do seem committed now, and you've given Snape every chance he can possibly require. If he can't see what he's losing in you, then he's not worthy of another one."

Draco lowered his eyes and nodded, because he wanted to cover how flustered he was and stop his immediate attempt to defend Severus. Severus was a better person than Potter thought him, but Draco doubted that he would want Potter to know the evidence that it was so; those were secrets he had entrusted Draco with, and that Draco did not intend to betray now. Potter might not think it significant that Severus had let Draco leave without an Unbreakable Vow, but Draco knew it was.

Severus still trusted him.

For the moment, Draco decided to get some of his own back by picking up on the thread that Potter had left dangling. He pasted a smile on his face and lowered the last of his books into the last trunk, then shrank the whole thing and tucked it into his pocket. "What about you? Do you have anyone whom you might _lose _if I move into your house?"

Potter grimaced and shook his head. "I doubt that you'll meet any of mine. I don't usually bring them home."

Draco paused and watched Potter with an uplifted eyebrow. He hadn't even considered that Potter might have become someone like this. It didn't sort with his mental picture of a repressed, determined Gryffindor. "One-night stands?"

Potter gave him a quick look. "Not quite that bad, but not in the permanent category either." He started placing trunks in his own pockets, a wry smile twisting his mouth. "The people you'll have to worry about are my friends."

Draco groaned. "The redoubtable Weasel and Mudblood," he muttered.

Potter went very still for a moment. Then he said, lightly, without looking at Draco, "If you say that again, I won't cast you out on the streets. I won't even stop working to get you cleared by the Wizengamot. But I'll make sure that your stay with me isn't very pleasant."

Draco nodded, already cursing himself. _If I want to prove that I'm not childish, this isn't the best way to do it. _"I'm—sorry," he said, after struggling with his own instincts not to apologize for a moment.

Potter turned around and utterly stared. Then he smiled. "Well, now that we've both apologized and shown that we can still argue, perhaps we can be going?" He looked around the bare room. "There's nothing else that you want to take with you?" he added. "Anything from the bedroom that you and Snape shared?"

Draco noted a certain sharp tone in Potter's voice and wondered about it, but didn't remark on it. "No. That has nothing in it now except a bed. I'm going to collect a few seeds from the garden, though."

"Do. I'll let you plant them at my house, if you like, and then I can remember this place more fondly." Potter flicked his wand as they left the room, and the layers of dust vanished. Draco cocked his head, and Potter smiled. "That way, he can't complain that we left anything dirty." He cast another spell. "And that one gets rid of all the feathers that I shed, including the ones in his lab."

Draco wondered if Potter knew that that would mean taking some of the stored feathers out of Severus's ingredients cabinets. From his lingering smile, Potter might.

He offered Potter his arm on the way out the door. Potter considered it with evident surprise for a moment, and then took it. Draco felt a sharp tingle run through him at the contact, and remembered Potter standing naked in the lab. He was no longer naked, since he'd borrowed and refitted a few of Draco's clothes, but the memory was easy to fetch.

Potter didn't seem to notice anything. Draco licked his lips and wondered what, if anything, would happen between them in the future.

* * *

"Stay close behind me," Harry warned Malfoy as they approached the Auror encampment he'd been _supposed _to reach a fortnight ago. Snape hadn't even let him send messages that he was all right, the paranoid bastard. "They're going to be jumpy, and I don't know how they'll react to you."

Malfoy stepped smartly behind him and rested one hand on his back not far above his arse, peering apprehensively around Harry's shoulders. Harry rolled his eyes. He knew Malfoy wasn't _that _frightened, but it might be to their advantage to pretend that he was, so that the Aurors would be less likely to cast spells on sight.

Although if the Aurors included Ron, as Harry expected them to, that might be impossible.

The wards were thick and strong, and made the place look like nothing more than a shallow bowl of heather in the hills, but Harry had the key to them. A flick of his wand and a moment of concentration, and he and Malfoy were stepping down among neatly placed tents, all of them red as Auror robes, with a convoy of flags flying above them.

"_Mate!_"

Harry laughed and held out his arms, catching Ron's rush and turning it into the kind of hug that spun them both around. Ron was holding him so tightly that Harry gasped, and muttering tiny, breathless words, his eyes shut. Harry closed his eyes and clung back, for just a moment not worrying about Malfoy or what the reaction to him would be or how he would explain his disappearance, but reveling in Ron's closeness. Through Harry quitting the Aurors and arguments and all, Ron had always remained his best friend.

"Who's this?"

Harry raised his head and turned hastily around, although Ron didn't want to let him go yet. Ron's capture of him had meant Malfoy was left standing alone, and now he was surrounded by suspicious Aurors, all with their wands aimed. Harry scowled when he realized that Gibbon was along on this trip. Auror Gibbon was a huge man with limited patience for escaped criminals of all stripes—an Azkaban escapee had killed his wife—and a conviction that all Death Eaters belonged in jail cells. Or dead. He wasn't picky.

Malfoy faced Gibbon with a calm look that did him credit, since Harry was fairly sure he wasn't calm at all. Only the tight position of his shoulders that meant his hands were locked together behind his back would have told you that, though.

"Stand down!" Harry barked. His voice still had the edge that Auror training had given to it, and most of the Aurors responded automatically. Gibbon didn't move, his gaze and wand both trained on Malfoy, but Harry saw Malfoy stand up straighter when he had only one opponent to face, which had been the whole point. Harry intended to start healing Malfoy's confidence as well as his innocence.

"That really is Malfoy, isn't it?" Ron asked. His grip had loosened in his confusion, and Harry was able to twist away, with a quick pat to his friend's shoulder to let him know that he didn't resent what Ron had done. "What in the _world_—"

"Explain in a minute," Harry muttered out of the corner of his mouth, although he could already feel his throat tightening a bit as the Unbreakable Vow exerted its pressure, and then detached himself from Ron and hurried over to Malfoy.

Gibbon didn't move even then, but he didn't have much choice except to notice when Harry reached out and pushed the tip of his wand down. Then he blinked and said, "He is a Death Eater, Potter, and an escapee."

"Funny, calling him that, when he was never tried in the first place," Harry snapped. "And you know the history of the war better than anyone except me, Gibbon, with the way you've studied it. What crimes did Malfoy commit, exactly?"

Gibbon frowned and spent a few moments looking at them both. He had large, sunken dark eyes, and his hands moved slowly over one another as though he were fumbling for his wand all the time. Harry knew that was an illusion. He had seen Gibbon move and cast curses almost unimaginably fast. "He must have participated in the torture of fellow students at Hogwarts," Gibbon said finally. "And there were reports that Voldemort had used him as a torturer."

"_Used _him," Harry said. "He never consented to it on his own. And if we're going to punish everyone who did things because they were afraid of the Death Eaters, then we'll have to include half the Aurors who worked for the puppet Ministry."

Gibbon stared at him in turn. Harry looked back, unimpressed. Gibbon was someone who confused his own desires for the rules. Harry had left the Aurors mostly because of the restrictions, but he knew that he could have become someone like Gibbon if he stayed.

_No one you despise quite as much as the people with flaws you see in yourself, _he thought wryly.

"I worked for the puppet Ministry," Gibbon said at last.

Harry sighed. Subtlety was wasted on the man. He really should have known better than to try it. "I _know _that," he said. "Do you think you deserve to be punished for what happened during the war?"

"No," Gibbon said, so slowly that Harry knew he had tried and failed to find a different answer, probably an answer as to why his fate and Malfoy's should be separate.

"Well, then," Harry said, and stepped back with a shake of his head. "You can't argue for Malfoy's punishment on that basis alone. You are not the Wizengamot. They're the ones who'll make the appropriate decision."

Gibbon leaned forwards until he was close to Harry's face. It was like having a bull breathe on you, Harry thought. "You're going to fight for him?" Gibbon whispered. "For this little waste of flesh?"

"Why not?" Harry twisted his smile to the side and hoped that everyone was listening as intently as they seemed to be. "Someone fought for you."

Whoever had trained Gibbon had at least impressed on him that it wasn't good to take your frustration out on colleagues. He turned around and stomped away without a word. Harry released a breath and glanced back at Malfoy. "You all right?" he murmured, so that the others wouldn't hear a question that might be a weakness for Malfoy.

Malfoy's face was pale, but he lifted his head and raised his eyebrows. "Yes, I am. He didn't actually touch me."

Harry smiled approval of this, and then turned around to face the second challenge, Ron. He was frowning at Malfoy, but he had learned to trust Harry more than he hated other people. He gave Harry an inviting smile. "Want to tell us where you picked him up?"

"He picked me up, rather," Harry said, glad that he'd had time to think about what edited version of the story he should speak. "When I fled those bastards' headquarters, they'd cast a spell on me that trapped me in my Animagus form, and _also _didn't show up to detection spells. Malfoy found me and thought I was an ordinary parrot. Eventually I trusted him enough to speak up, he found out I wasn't, and he helped me get back to my human shape." There. That didn't even mention Snape's existence. It ought to be enough to fulfill the Vow and explain Malfoy's presence at the same time.

Ron nodded, but his frown deepened. "And you decided to come with him?" he asked Malfoy. "Why?"

Harry breathed more easily. Malfoy didn't have an oath constraining him, and he could lie or tell the truth as he wanted.

"I'm tired of living in isolation from the outside world, always wondering if today will be the day it finds me," Malfoy said, and the passion in his voice convinced Harry he was telling the truth about his feelings, if not the source of his isolation. "I ran away because I was a scared little kid, and I didn't know anything except that your lot might condemn me, too. My parents were already in prison, and that was despite my mother having saved Potter's _life_. I wasn't interested in becoming one more victim for the orgy of punishment that was going on." He wrapped his arms around himself as if he was cold. "But I want my life back, and I'll stand in front of the Wizengamot with Potter at my side."

He gave a glance at Harry that said he had _better _be there. Harry nodded back to him with a smile, and some more of Malfoy's tension drained off.

Ron cocked his head so far to the side that he looked like he was in danger of falling over, as Harry had done a few times before he learned to manage his parrot form. "Well," Ron said slowly. "He'll have to come in and talk with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, of course."

"Of course," Harry said, and moved on to something more important to him, now that Malfoy was no longer in immediate danger. "I'm sorry I couldn't contact you before. Malfoy didn't know who I was, and then didn't want to release the wards. But how are you? How are Hermione and the rest of the family? I'm sorry, you probably all thought I was dead."

Ron grabbed him for another hug in response, and held him still there, his eyes shut as though he was trying to find the words to express all he felt. Then he murmured, "It was like the time when you dropped out of the Auror program, only worse, because at least then we could be fairly sure you were _alive_. Don't do that again."

"I'll try not to get trapped in my parrot form and fly into the wrong camp," Harry promised solemnly, though he winced a bit. When he had dropped out of the Auror program, he had shut himself into his house, behind wards that made it look as though no one lived there anymore, because he needed to think and didn't want to be interrupted. He hadn't even thought about how frantic his friends would feel until he came back from thinking and had that forcefully pointed out to him.

"Idiot," Ron muttered into his hair. Then he stepped back and gave Harry a harsh smile. "We did find enough evidence to catch most of the bastards in the house with you, though, and enough to hold them. But we can't try them until you testify. Ready to do that?"

"Of course," Harry said. "The minute we get back, if you like." Then he followed Ron's expressive gaze to Malfoy and said, "Well, maybe five minutes after that. He'll need to be settled in first."

He started to step away, but stopped when he felt Ron's hand on his shoulder. Ron leaned close and murmured, "_Really_? I mean, he really saved your life, and you really want to help him get reestablished in the wizarding world? And he's really going to live with you?"

Harry smiled, squeezed Ron's hand, and murmured, "Yes, all the 'reallys' in this case are true."

Ron said, "And you're going to be all right? I mean, living with another bloke?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Now is _not _the time to discuss that," he said.

Whatever Ron saw in his face made him step back with his hands up. "No, I reckon not," he said peaceably. "Well, do whatever you need to to make Malfoy comfortable. I'll hold the others at bay."

Harry nodded and made his way over to Malfoy, who had sat down in front of one of the tents and was staring quite blankly at everything.

* * *

Draco had somehow skipped over _other people _when he began to imagine what life would be like outside the confines of his and Severus's cottage. He had known Potter would be fighting for him, and it had been easy to imagine standing in front of a courtroom full of Wizengamot members. He had done it when he attended his parents' trials, after all.

But meanwhile, there were people everywhere around him, with their own concerns and an ignorance of his history so profound that no one had accused him of being connected with Severus's escape yet. They bustled and they talked and they glared at him, and Draco could hardly take in their presence.

He had spent every day and night for the last six years with only one other person. The _Daily Prophet _and daydreams were a poor substitute for a social life, and having Potter with him for a fortnight didn't ease the transition.

"Are you all right?"

Draco started. He had forgotten, too, that there was one person with him who did know his history and commiserate with his loneliness. He turned his head to the side and pressed his face against Potter's shoulder, without a thought of what it might look like.

Potter seemed to have one. He cleared his throat and carefully moved back from Draco, so that he could study his face. "I have to make my report," he said, "and I want to write a letter to the Wizengamot that will alert them of my intent to fight for you. Will you be content to wait that long? After that, we can go home."

_Home._ Draco swallowed and wondered if Potter's house would ever feel like that to him.

Not that the cottage had, either, not for years. Not that the Manor would if he went back to it now, without his parents. He was homeless, and that notion made him want to shudder and wrap his arms around himself.

_You still have your pride, _said a voice in the back of his head that could have been Severus's. _Hold these feelings inside, and you need never let anyone else know that you have them._

Draco relaxed a bit as he thought about that, and nodded in response to Potter's question. "I'm not a child," he added for good measure.

"I know that," Potter said, and gave him a quick, sweet smile. "What you are is someone coming out of isolation for the first time in years. You need help to get used to the light and the noise and the movement and the company again. That's fine. I'll do what I can to help, and you can move out when you're ready. Only _you _can make that decision."

He pressed one hand down on Draco's shoulder and started to stand, but Draco caught his arm and stayed him. "Why are you being so nice to me?" he asked. Weasley's reaction had let him know that Potter would hardly be in the habit of bringing home former enemies and telling his friends that he was going to redeem them.

Potter didn't answer right away, but stood gazing into Draco's face as if the answer would be written on his skin. Then he bent down and spoke quietly. Draco noticed a few people eying them and decided that was probably the source of Potter's caution, rather than some wariness that originated from his reaction to Draco.

"Because you deserve a second chance. Because I can see something in you that I saw in myself three years ago, when I stared into the mirror and realized that I didn't _want _to be an Auror and I would go mad if I tried. I think you would have gone mad if you were cooped up in that cottage much longer. I don't know that you'll succeed in all the ways I'd like you to, but I do intend for you to succeed in winning your freedom back. I wanted to be happy, and I want you to be happy."

He squeezed Draco's shoulder one more time and walked away in the direction of the largest tent. Draco watched him go and resisted the temptation to follow him or ask more questions or demand more of his attention.

Weasley sat down on a chair planted in the middle of the open not far away and started to polish his wand. He didn't look at Draco, but Draco suspected he was there as a guard to make sure no one harassed him while Potter was gone. Draco was simultaneously grateful and irritated, and decided to show neither emotion.

He was just a _bit _more preoccupied with what Potter had said to him. Who cared so suddenly and deeply for the happiness of someone he'd met out of the blue a fortnight ago and last seen six years before that, and who he'd never liked, just because of a chance resemblance he might be mistaken about in the first place?

No one, Draco decided. There was something going on beneath the surface, something about Potter that he would have to work out and decide how far he could depend on. He didn't doubt Potter would be as good as his word about helping Draco win his freedom, but if Potter could help him in any way with happiness…

Draco decided that his task for the next two weeks or so was to understand Potter. It was no light thing, or easy one. Understanding Potter meant understanding his own survival and the new world he found himself in.

And his own future, Draco tacked on to the end of that thought after a moment's consideration. He had the impression that his road and Potter's might run together for longer than the initial help Potter planned to offer.

Draco lay back and folded his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky. The intuition of connection with Potter was like a heavy weight in his chest and belly.

The only time he'd ever felt anything like it was when he had stared at Severus through the bars of his cell and known he would do anything to rescue him.


	9. Letters Out of Silence

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Letters Out of Silence_

Severus had not anticipated how _silent _the house would be with Draco gone.

It should have been easy to adapt to. He had often wished for silence during the evenings, when he wished to read and Draco _would _annoy him with conversation. He had not wished to discuss mundane things like their meals, the gardens, the birds that Draco had seen and counted that day, or Draco's schooldays, all of which Draco had thought to introduce as fit topics of conversation. Severus had never needed chatter to make his life complete, and that had been as true when he sat at the High Table in Hogwarts as it was now.

So when the quiet descended on the house for the last time, as the door banged behind Potter and Draco, Severus opened his mind in welcome.

But the silence endured. It lay there for hours in the evening like a great hunting beast in the drawing room with Severus, and it padded into his room after him and lay stretched across the foot of the bed. And then it followed him into the gardens and the lab, and blocked the orders he would have given with a muffling paw.

Severus coldly analyzed these reactions as the first signs of someone who was going to go slightly mad with isolation. As long as the madness got no worse than that—as long as he didn't start believing the hunting beast was real—he thought he could bear it.

But bearing was not the same as enjoying.

Severus sat on the couch and read, and the turning of the pages was loud in his ears.

He measured Potions ingredients and realized that he had paused in his counting, anticipating the interruptions that Draco often made and which were, now, never to come.

He cleaned the vials in his lab until they shone, and still the thought that he could see only his own face reflected in them made him turn away abruptly.

He could analyze that reaction, too, and he did as he ate his third dinner alone, the scraping of the fork on the plate enough to put his hackles up as Draco's voice had once done. He had grown used to having Draco around in the past few years. He had tolerated his presence rather than liked it, but it was still a mixture of habit and well-worn use that made him turn, expecting someone to demand things of him that Severus had no intention of offering. It would take him some time to become used to being alone again.

Six years of company, against three days of loneliness, where the loneliness was severe enough already to amount to a disease.

Severus did not like the odds, and that was the reason—the _only_ reason—that he turned to the quills, ink, and parchment that waited on the desk in his bedroom, largely unused except when he was writing to one of the clients who knew his assumed name. And then he paused there, because he had fallen out of the habit of writing personal letters even more than out of the habit of being alone.

In the end, he snarled at himself and wrote the letter as it came to him, ragged words and all. Draco would not be a stylist concerned with such matters in the same way Severus himself was. He had never cared that much about writing, as opposed to the content of the writing. Lucius had liked to boast that he was raising his son in the first style of elegance, but Draco had never had much elegance of habit. He frequently dragged his sleeve across the page and blotted it, or dripped ink on the paper enough to obscure the words while he stared dreamily out the window.

Severus stopped short then and examined the emotions that budded in his own mind with suspicion. Was he regarding Draco's habits, which had annoyed him so much at the time because they wasted parchment, _fondly_?

Severus shook his head and went to find an owl to send the letter. There were always several that remained near the house, half-tame, and would work for the promise of food. Severus preferred not to keep a single, identifiable post-owl that someone could follow back to him or come to know by name and sight.

He would send this, and Draco would feel the pull to respond, and perhaps to return.

Severus hastily qualified that in his own mind. He _would _not be able to bear it if Draco returned permanently. But a flying visit, where he knew that he possessed the power to exile Draco from the house again at once if his behavior did not please him, would do nicely.

* * *

Draco still couldn't really believe that Harry Potter was living in the house of his Black ancestors.

The place was dim and gloomy, suiting its name, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. But Potter had carried an—an _atmosphere _with him into the place that had changed it, transformed it, and probably had as much to do with the way Draco felt there as the changed decoration and the coats of paint on the wood.

A single house-elf lived here, and seemed to keep mostly to the kitchens, though from the ecstatic way he bowed to Draco, Draco had the feeling that he would be happy to leave it and come up to tend to Draco's rooms at any time. The sheer relief of not having to keep up with his own chores if he didn't want to made Draco close his eyes and stand there in silence for long moments after Potter had introduced him to Kreacher.

And most remarkably, Potter had seemed to understand why he might want to do so. He had remained by his side in calm silence until Draco remembered himself and opened his eyes, and then escorted him upstairs to see the rooms that would be his.

_Rooms_. Draco had had only a single bedroom for so long that he'd been able to forget what it was like to have several assigned to him, for his exclusive use. This "wing" was a bedroom, a bathroom, and a large, empty room that Potter told him he could furnish as a study, a library, or anything else that caught his fancy, so it was small, but Draco didn't care. For personal reasons, the choice to come with Potter had obviously been the right one.

His bed was enormous, made of ebony, hung with curtains of dark blue silk that Kreacher carefully dusted and preserved every day; Draco thought they would have collapsed into mold long ago if not for him. The window looked out over a small, bleak lawn, quite a change from the gardens around the cottage, but Draco already had plans for changing that. There was also a desk and a chair in the room that Draco had sat down uncomfortably at only once, before he came in and found that Kreacher had cushioned the seat of the chair.

That was the real difference, Draco thought, not that he was living in a larger house or one without gardens or even one with a house-elf. He was living in a place with someone who had _consideration _for him. He had forgotten what that felt like.

And it didn't seem to matter that it was Potter. The man had consideration anyway, or extra consideration, maybe, given who he was. He didn't remind Draco of their days at Hogwarts, other than by the inevitable things like the memories he stirred when he looked at Draco with those green eyes. He didn't make any mention of payment. He gave Draco the books he asked for, lavish meals, time alone, time in the same room even if they didn't speak, and he got Potions ingredients after only a brief consultation with Granger. When Draco asked what he'd asked her, Potter grinned briefly and said, "If you think I can walk into an apothecary and actually know what black lilies or some of the other ingredients you named look like, you're flattering me."

Potter's friends, now, Draco thought as he leaned back in the big, comfortable chair that Kreacher had dragged into the study for him and stared out the window. Potter had shown him the simple enchantment that would give him a variety of views, and Draco had chosen a field of snow with moonlight playing over it.

Potter's friends were surprising.

Weasley had stood guard for him in the camp and then, afterwards, when he visited Potter's house, watched Draco with a curious eye but not an overly cautious one. If he rarely spoke to Draco directly, well, what did they have to say to each other? Civility was more than Draco had hoped for.

As for Granger…

Draco shook his head. He felt almost as if he should be exchanging tales of commiseration with Kreacher and any werewolves who might happen to be about. They were some of the few people in the world who would know what it was like to be one of Hermione Granger's _causes._

Granger had been sitting in the kitchen the first morning that Draco came down. She had sprung to her feet at once and advanced with her hand out. Draco hadn't been able to decide whether he wanted to shake or not because she'd made the decision for him, pumping his hand until his wrist hurt.

"I think it's _awful_, that they would have tried and condemned you," she said warmly. "I think it's _noble _that you escaped rather than sacrifice yourself to an overeager Wizengamot. And now we can work on freeing your mother, too!" She turned away, tucking a curl of unexpectedly sleek brown hair behind her ear, and picked up a stack of parchments that were as tall as her shoulder, at least sitting on the table. "Now, I've been looking into the laws that govern your situation, and…"

And on and on she went, naming so many laws and exceptions and loopholes they could use to try and make sure that he would go free that Draco was dazed. Where had she _found _them all? She could have had, at most, about sixteen hours to gather the information at that point, if Potter or Weasley had owled her the minute Draco came into the Auror camp, and she must have spent some part of that time sleeping. But there the information was, and there she was, and Draco sat back while the words poured over him and enjoyed, again, the consideration.

He wondered if he was getting too soft, if Severus would have said so with a sneer in his voice. Where was the endurance that had let him bear six years of poor treatment? Where was the self-sufficiency he had been dreaming of wistfully when Potter stumbled into his life?

But maybe that was still to come. Draco admitted that he could enjoy what he had for the moment without wanting it to continue forever.

He was starting to settle into this routine, becoming confident and hopeful that he would escape being sent to Azkaban after all, when Severus's letter came and upset all his balance.

* * *

Harry sighed. "_No_," he said. "I'm not saying that he did _nothing _during the war. Of course not. He refused to identify us at Malfoy Manor when he had the chance. That counts as doing something."

The Wizengamot member he was dealing with sniffed disdainfully. Harry had known she would. Her name was Maria Hellebore, and she was so old that Harry thought all human sympathy had withered in her veins. "You do understand, Mr. Potter," she said, "that I am only taking your call personally because of who you are?" She shifted, and Harry wondered if it hurt her knees to be down in front of a fireplace like this. He hoped it did. "Otherwise, a secretary would be here, and you would not stand much chance of convincing one of our secretaries that young Malfoy deserves to escape Azkaban."

"I'm not saying that he absolutely _must_," Harry said. "I'm saying that he should have a fair trial, and that means I'll stand with him. If you choose to take that statement as a threat, it's your right."

Hellebore regarded him with sleepy dark eyes for a long moment. Her mind had been sharpened, if anything, by age, and Harry hoped that he wasn't making the mistake of underestimating her. But he didn't think so. He was simply determined that Malfoy should have actual _fair _treatment, and that was running up against Hellebore's apparent idea that justice should not be talked about until the Wizengamot had determined it.

"Very well, Mr. Potter," she said finally, stiffly. "I will tell you when a date is set for the trial."

Harry smiled with only his teeth. He knew this particular delaying tactic. "Within the week," he said casually, and moved as if he would close the Floo connection.

Hellebore blinked behind her glasses. "And what makes you think that the Wizengamot will come up with such a date to oblige you?" she asked softly. "The business of wizarding government does not wait on the impatient tempers of two young men who have not made the contribution they ought to make to the wizarding world."

_Ah. Someone else who thinks I should have been an Auror. _Harry found those people irritating, but he also found it useful to identify them, because then he would know how to fight them. He gave another one of his not-smiles again and said, "Because I know that otherwise the Wizengamot will delay this and delay this, attempting to wear our wills down with suspense, until they have enough information gathered to, as they think, put Mr. Malfoy into prison without argument. And because I want to prevent that, because I want to make sure that he gets a _fair _trial this time instead of the biased thing he would have had years ago, I'm going to have a trial date within the week."

"Or?" Hellebore said.

"Or the _Daily Prophet _gets an exclusive story about how Malfoy was kind to me when I was injured," Harry said coldly, "and, incidentally, about how the Wizengamot is attempting to delay his trial because they're still incensed about their own incompetence in allowing him to escape six years ago."

There was a little silence, and then Hellebore bowed and said, "You shall have your trial. But I feel obliged to warn you that you will not have many friends there."

Harry sneered at her and shut the Floo connection. _As if either of us have many friends there in the first place._

As he stood up, he paused. There was something wrong, he thought, but he didn't know what it was. He turned his head from side to side, listening for any disruption in the wards around the house, but heard nothing. He snapped his fingers and summoned Kreacher.

The house-elf appeared still bowing and gasping; he had evidently been making dinner, since he was covered with dough. Harry smiled at him. "Kreacher, did you just admit someone to the house? Or is something else wrong?"

"No, nothing wrong, Master Harry!" Kreacher paused, his ears standing out from the sides of his head, and suddenly looked hunted. "Unless Kreacher has been leaving Master Harry's bed unmade!" He turned around and would have slammed his forehead into the wall if Harry hadn't put carefully restraining hands on his shoulders. He didn't want Kreacher hurt, but he also didn't want his hands covered with food.

"That's all right, Kreacher," he said. "As long as you don't see anything wrong, then nothing can be. I trust you."

Kreacher stood up so tall that Harry thought he would float right off the ground, bobbed his head, clicked his heels together, and then vanished back to the kitchen. Harry stepped out of the library, where he'd firecalled the Wizengamot, and wandered slowly along the corridor, listening.

He didn't find the source of the wrongness until he went to the first floor, rather than the second. Then he could hear the unusual silence coming from behind the door of Malfoy's robes. There was always _some _noise there, as if Malfoy was trying to make up for the years of silence and constraint in Snape's presence: the rustle of a page, the chanting of a spell, the sound of furniture being dragged about. Harry knocked.

The silence remained unbroken for so long that he was considering kicking the door down, but then Malfoy said in a dead voice, "Come in."

Harry opened the door and saw him sitting in the large chair that he had requested for his study, staring out the window. In his hand was a letter that bore a spiky handwriting Harry recognized instantly. If years of seeing remarks on his essays hadn't made it known to him, watching Snape write notes for the potions in the last fortnight would have.

He stepped up to Malfoy's side and took the letter gently from his unresisting fingers.

_Draco:_

_ You are not the man I thought you were. No, of course you are not; you were always a boy. You have abandoned me without care. The moment Potter walked into your life, he was enough to turn your head, and thus I came to know where your heart has always lain: with someone who could give you the greatest advantage, not with someone who you pretended to genuinely care for._

Harry held back the incredulous snort at the idea that _Snape _would accuse someone of looking out for his own advantage. It was clear that the letter had devastated Draco, and Harry didn't want to sound like he was mocking his pain. He put a hand on Draco's shoulder and pressed down gently as he continued reading.

_Six years of companionship mean nothing to you. You wished to reduce our relationship to sex and nothing more. The minute I stopped giving in to your importunities, you began to whine. You remain _young_, younger than anyone else I have ever known, with less self-control, less skill, and less talent. You will find no happiness in the outside world because you carry that youth with you. I would give you a year, perhaps less, before you end up as Potter's pampered pet and spoiled fucktoy._

There was no signature, Harry thought, as he handed the letter back to Draco with his heart thudding in his ears. There didn't need to be.

"Draco," he said quietly. He hoped his use of the first name would jolt Draco out of his trance, and so it appeared. He started, blinked, and looked up at Harry with a hopelessness that was at least better than the motionless mask his face had worn a few moments before.

"He wrote that letter to hurt you," Harry said. "That's the only reason. He's wounded himself and lashing out." He drew a deep breath and thought carefully about what to say next. He couldn't ask Draco not to let the letter hurt him; Harry knew as well as anyone else that intimate feelings like that were often beyond control. But he would try something similar. "Do you want to go back to him?"

Draco's eyes glowed with fire, and he lifted his head in a way that Harry had come to know well. "Of course not! I meant it when I said that I wasn't a coward, and I wasn't going to go crawling back."

Harry nodded and smiled at him. "Good. Then we can try something else. Write a letter back to him. Tell him what you felt—"

Draco shook his head. "Since he wrote this to hurt me," he said, and crumpled Snape's letter violently in his fist, "I won't give him what he wants."

Harry felt his smile grow wider, and hoped that it was mostly admiration of Draco that drove the expression, rather than pleasure that Draco would turn his back on Snape. "Then write a letter back that mocks him. That would be a response that he didn't expect, don't you think? He thinks of you as weak and fragile, based on that letter. Silence or a wounded cry for him to stop would be what would please him. Do something that displeases him."

Draco abruptly considered Harry with a skeptical look. "You sound like you're enjoying this a little too much."

Harry hesitated, then shrugged and admitted honestly, "Yes, I am. But I _don't _enjoy seeing you hurt. I'd just like to see Snape suffer a dose of his own potion, for once."

Draco closed his eyes. Then he murmured, "Find me ink and parchment."

Harry went willingly for them, and decided that he would keep as silent as possible while Draco was writing, and not try to read it. Draco deserved the chance to make some decisions on his own, for once.

He managed to do that, and Draco was silent in return, except for the scratching of the quill on the parchment, until the owl had carried the letter out the window. Then he turned around, stood from the chair, and studied Harry.

"What?" Harry asked. He had expected Draco to be caught up in his own memories of Snape and feelings at the moment. There was a scrutinizing spirit behind those steady grey eyes that surprised and pleased him at the same time.

"No one has ever displayed this much tenderness for me since I stopped being a child," Draco murmured. "Why are you?"

"I don't know that it's tenderness, exactly," Harry said. "I just want you to have a fair chance. That's what you haven't had so far."

"Mmmm." Draco studied him once more, then stepped past him. Harry relaxed, thinking the interrogation was over, only to freeze when he felt Draco's fingers sliding along his neck and into his hair.

"Thank you," Draco said, voice deeper than Harry had heard it before, and he left the room.

Harry stood where he was, staring after him.

* * *

Severus smiled grimly when the post-owl brought Draco's response back. He could not have written it more than an hour after receiving it, at least if Severus's estimation of the travel times was correct. He opened the letter and settled down to read either the plea to leave Draco alone or the pathetic, childish defiance he expected.

It was neither.

_Severus:_

_ I had hoped that you would have learned better by now than to take your disappointment out on me. Obviously what you want is what you accuse Potter of wanting: a toy who will obey your every whim. You think that you only had to wind up me when you wanted and I would go, and you could stand me in a corner the rest of the time and ignore me._

_ Does it surprise you that the toy has a will of his own? That I might go and live with someone else because I'm sick of not having my freedom, or a social life, or the ability to do something different with all my decades than sit in an isolated cottage and watch myself decay?_

_ I can imagine nothing more terrible than spending my life with you—the version of you that exists right now. I thought you were different, and that's my delusion, for which I have to pay the price. But you gave up the chance to get to know me and live with me and really _love _me, for which you'll pay a price even if you don't recognize it as such._

_ I'm not coming back. _

_ Draco._

Severus sat still.


	10. In Flux

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—In Flux_

Severus stood in front of his cauldron and stared in silence at the ruined Calming Draught. This was one of the simplest potions one could brew; a competent second-year could have managed it. And now he had ruined it because he had not added the basil leaves at the correct moment—he who _always _added them at the correct moment, who had never failed in such a thing from the moment that he first had Potions ingredients in his hands.

_I was thinking about Draco._

Severus turned away from the cauldron with a snarl, and then forced himself to not reach out and grasp the delicate equipment around him as he wanted. He had already smashed everything that wasn't irreplaceable in the grips of his rage. He could repair vials, but he would never again trust a silver cauldron that had once had a crack in the side. And while he could order another one—he had Galleons enough for that—he did not want Draco to force him to spend money.

Draco. And Potter.

That was the source of the difference. If Draco had left because he was bored and fed-up, Severus honestly believed that he would not have missed him. But that he had left with Potter meant he would have another lover soon, one who would make him smile and probably give him the degree of spoiling that he had always wanted and which Severus had denied him for his own good, and would not feel the urge to come back to Severus.

Severus shut his eyes. Lately, when he had thoughts like that, he could feel his mind leaping and surging in odd ways, as though other thoughts were trying to force their way to the surface. Of course, he had never been one of the weaklings who held the theory that one could not control his mind or body. There was no one in his skull but him to think the thoughts, and no one but him who could master them.

In this case, he did not want to think about Draco's accusations and the idea that his fear of Potter was a cover for his own shame.

Having faced the thought, Severus flinched and turned aside, and then wondered why he was. How _could _he be so weak as that? It was ridiculous. He would consider anything that he wanted to consider, and his biases and fears would not rule that process for him.

He left the lab, because he could not do good work there while he was in this state, and went to the drawing room. He had thought a moment of going into the gardens to walk, but the gardens reminded him too much of Draco. He sat down on the couch in the drawing room instead and stared bitterly at the shattered remnants of the cage that Draco had kept Potter in.

How could Draco have written like that to him? Severus had been honest in his initial letter. He had warned Draco of his faults and told him how he could correct them. He had shown his distress that Draco had left. Severus had thought that was what Draco wanted, the demonstration that he was important to Severus.

And Draco had responded as though he was sick of the way that Severus felt about him, sick of the way he felt about Draco's faults.

Severus paused, breathing faster. Somewhere out in the garden, a bird chirped. Severus had nearly fired a curse through the window before it occurred to him that Potter could not be back in the garden—Severus would have felt him come through the wards—and that parrots didn't sound like that. He opened his shaking hand and let the wand drop to the floor.

What if—what if?

This time, the thought did in truth come slowly, forcing its way up through layers of sluggish mud. Even when he became impatient and tried to think it faster, Severus could do nothing to hasten it until it burst on his perceptions in all its angry glory.

What if Draco was responding the way Severus would, if someone told him he was childish, had never grown up, and was only looking for a lover? Severus knew more than that about himself. He knew his depths, his skills, his prides, his passions, and it did not matter to him if no one else ever did.

Draco was different, but he could have—he could have thoughts like that. He could think he was more than Severus saw, and respond scornfully out of that self-sufficiency.

And of course, then, he would react angrily to a letter that commanded him to return. Because Severus would.

Severus's fingers crumpled at the air, but he had nothing to hold now, including Draco's letter. He leaped to his feet and paced back and forth, afraid for a moment of what someone else looking at him would see, but then remembering that he was _alone_, had been alone for three days before the letter came and alone for what felt like decades since the letter had arrived, and that no one would hear him if he chose to scream.

He did not, of course. There were limits to the melodrama that he would play out in his own home, limits to the way that he would shift himself into Draco's perspective. But he paced and his head whirled and the thoughts were coming thick and fast now, thicker and faster than he would have preferred them to if he had full control.

Draco did not like to be commanded. Draco was able to muster the confidence to leave even after six years of a love that he had clung to long after Severus believed it to be dead. Draco had chosen to stay away and to regard him with scorn, and that stabbed as deep into Severus as though someone had hit him with a brush full of needles, deeper than his pride went.

That could only mean…

Severus halted, breath quickening, and his fingers clenching into his palm so deeply that he winced and unbent them a moment later. They had left red marks.

That could only mean that Draco was a little like Severus. And so Severus was a little like him, with similar feelings and an otherwise inexplicable regret that Draco had left him. And Severus believed that nothing was inexplicable.

That could only mean that Severus felt some type of affection for Draco, if not Draco's lingering love, and that the regret would not cease until he had Draco back with him.

But then not even that thought was enough. Severus had really and truly roused his mind now, and, as if grateful for the chance to think about something other than potions, it was in full and roaring flood.

_What would keep it from happening again, if you had him back? You would ignore him the moment you were assured of his love, and he would be lonely and pine for the outside world. No chance that he could establish a business like yours; he's not good enough at any one thing, and inferior products coming out under the same assumed name would diminish your reputation and your money. And you couldn't provide him with the contacts and the freedom and the renewed respectability that he craves._

_Something would have to change. There would have to be some other factor if he came back._

And there the chattering of Severus's mind fell into silence, because he did not know what that other factor would have to be, and the silence crept back in around him, dragging a large black web with it.

* * *

"Members of the Wizengamot. I think you will find that my client, Draco Malfoy, does not deserve to be put in Azkaban for several reasons."

Draco shut his eyes. He had never thought that Granger's voice would speak those words. He had never realized that he could be in this courtroom sitting in an ordinary chair, rather than the one with chains that stood in the center of the floor.

Then a small smile tugged at his lips. Of course, the reason he wasn't in the chair with chains was simple. The Aurors who had come for him and Potter had tried to guide them there, and Potter had followed them without stopping and conjured a second chair with chains right beside the first. As everyone stared at him in astonishment, he'd sat down in the conjured one and reached out to wrap the manacles around his wrists.

"Mr. Potter!" The scandalized voice came from among the Wizengamot, but Draco wasn't sure which one of them it was. "Do you mind telling us what you are _doing_?"

"Oh, I thought that was obvious," Potter said, blinking up at them with a look on his face that only an idiot would have thought was confused or myopic. Then again, Draco thought, watching Potter in glee and fascination, the Wizengamot was probably ninety percent idiots, with ten percent intelligent people whose conceptions of the world were outdated. "But then again, I can understand how you wouldn't recognize fairness when you see it."

Draco had gaped at him, particularly when Granger shot Potter a disapproving frown, but he had understood a moment later, when Potter said, "Of course, if you were willing to release Mr. Malfoy from his degrading position…"

Granger and Potter were working as a team. Granger would speak the legal language that the Wizengamot needed to hear, and Potter would threaten them with outrageousness when they went too far.

Draco had had to shut his eyes against distinctly unmanly tears, and he'd leaned a little heavily on Potter when the Aurors reluctantly stepped back and let him up from the chair. Potter had stood there, letting him lean, and whispered, "Are you all right?"

"I am. Now." Draco opened his eyes and looked up, not bothering to hide what he felt. Potter had blinked and shuffled and then led him over to where Granger was sitting, carefully not touching him on the way.

Draco had sat down in the chair next to her and watched her rise to combat the Wizengamot with a little smile on her mouth. She looked perfectly polite and more carefully groomed than he would have thought possible. Her hair clung around her head as smooth curls; she held a sheaf of parchments that she barely looked at, instead meeting the eyes in the gallery above her and pronouncing her words clearly.

"…as Draco Malfoy was a student of Hogwarts at the time, and yet no one was able to resume a professor's care for him, which is the way that any young wizard 'of age' at Hogwarts can still be disciplined by their Heads of House and other professors rather than obliged to strike out on their own as a legal adult…"

And so on flowed the talk, and Draco could see some of the Wizengamot members blinking their eyes in what looked like horrified fascination. Draco wondered if part of her tactics involved simply wearing the enemy into exhaustion.

"She'll win you free," Potter murmured to him, as if he knew where Draco's thoughts were tending. "She's too good not to. And she's never lost a case." There was a lilt of pride in his voice, and his eyes fixed on Granger's back as though he was lost in admiration.

Draco astonished himself with a stab of jealousy. He had never seen Potter look at _him_ that way, although he had seen him look that way at Granger, at Weasley, and at several of the other Aurors they'd been with since they left Severus's house. So he handed it out freely to everyone around him, it seemed, except Draco.

_What have you done to win his admiration, exactly?_

But Draco didn't have to think about that if he didn't want to, and he had long since accepted that his feelings weren't exactly reasonable. He asked in a low voice, trying not to disturb Granger's magnificent litany, "Why was she so eager to help me? Why were you?"

Potter blinked and looked away from Granger as though he had to physically pull his eyes free. "For the same reason," he said. "What happened to you was unjust. What _was _happening to you when I found you—there—was unjust. You deserve a chance to prove that you can have the sort of adult life you wanted and were denied. If you fuck that up this time, well, that's your look-out. But it wasn't fair last time, and all the circumstances were against you in a way that no one could have overcome."

Draco stared at his hands. He couldn't remember the last time someone had said that they were going to treat him like everyone else and then actually done so. Maybe with McGonagall, who was scrupulously even-handed with all the Houses. But other than that, he was always being favored or denigrated, and made to feel like a fraud most of the time, because he was praised or blamed for qualities he didn't possess.

"Draco? Are you all right?"

Potter sometimes called him by his first name now, since the letter came. Draco remembered that. He turned to face Potter and studied him, not bothering to hide the intent searching look in his eyes.

Potter blinked and looked back, bewildered and helpful and half-smiling. Draco leaned in until his lips almost brushed Potter's ear—and let the greedily staring members of the Wizengamot take that as they would—and whispered, "You're going further than you need to for me. I've never met someone who does this much for a relative stranger, a former enemy, just because his sense of justice has been outraged."

Potter's eyes flashed and he muttered back, "Well, now you're met three."

And then he turned to the side and refused to speak to Draco for the rest of that particular trial session.

* * *

"I think it went well."

Harry laughed and slid another glass of pumpkin juice across the table to Hermione; it was the only thing she was thirsty for after a trial like this. Hermione picked it up, drained half of it, and then started wandering around his kitchen in a state of high excitement, though after every circuit she came back to rub her hand across the top of the parchments. Harry wondered if that was one of the ways she absorbed all the knowledge she needed to fight her legal battles, through the words running straight from parchment into her brain. Malfoy had already gone upstairs. Harry suspected he was overwhelmed, and who wouldn't be, with all those eyes staring at him?

"That's an understatement," Harry said.

Hermione whirled towards him, eyes bright. "Then you followed the progress of the arguments?"

Harry shook his head regretfully, and watched her face fall. Hermione was always looking for someone she could share her genius with; though she still liked to explain to an ignorant audience, Harry thought most of that impulse went into the trials themselves now. "No, but I can always tell when it's gone well just by the expression on your face," he said.

Hermione cocked her head wisely. "And what about Malfoy's face?"

"What about it?" Harry asked, surprised. "I don't think he understood it fully either, if that's what you're asking, but he was impressed."

Hermione said nothing, but gave him a smirk. As the silence stretched, Harry suddenly knew what she was talking about. He turned away and fiddled with his own glass of pumpkin juice, sliding it back and forth across the table until it left a wet ring behind it. Hermione finally reached out and clamped her hand over the top of the glass.

"Kreacher will have to clean up that mark later, and I prefer not to make extra work for him," she said firmly. By now, she had given up on trying to coax Kreacher out of Harry's service, which Harry was profoundly grateful for. It was the reason he wasn't afraid to leave the house on cases that could stretch for weeks; he knew Kreacher would look after everything and have a hot meal waiting when he got back. "Now, Harry, why you can't just face up to what this means?"

"'_What this means_,'" Harry mocked viciously, shoving his chair back from the table and pacing in a circle of his own. Hermione didn't try to stop him, just watched him. Harry glared at her, loathing the knowing look on her face. "What this means, Hermione, is that I have someone I need to help. Like Neville, that time Hannah had kicked him out and he needed a place to stay. Or Dean, when we thought that he might kill himself and he needed help. I help people. You know that. It's what's right."

"I know that," Hermione said. Her face was sober, probably from the reminder of Dean's situation. At least he was still alive, and attending regular sessions at St. Mungo's now. "But this is different. The others were friends. Before, when you had to help a man and he was a stranger, you didn't bring him to the house with you."

"I don't do that with women, either," Harry snapped. "I like my privacy."

Hermione gave a windy sigh that seemed to travel through at least eight other throats before it got to her. The eight other throats were all Weasley ones, and they thought the same thing Hermione did, Harry knew. He braced himself for the usual lecture.

It wasn't that he didn't understand his friends' concerns. They wanted him to be happy, and didn't think he could be when he went from woman to woman the way he did. On the other hand, not everyone had the kind of blissful marriage that Ron and Hermione, Molly and Arthur, and Bill and Fleur did. Maybe Harry was different. Maybe he just didn't fit the pattern. As long as he didn't hurt anyone, he didn't see why it mattered.

"You've never settled down," Hermione said softly, "though I see the envy in your eyes when you watch us. It's not always one-night stands, no, but it _is _extremely short relationships." She hesitated, then added, "And usually with Quidditch players, Muggleborn athletes, and other women who aren't—the common stereotype of women."

"That doesn't mean I don't want a family," Harry said. "I just don't know if it would be with a woman."

He'd left himself open with that one, he realized a moment later, as Hermione grinned and leaned forwards. "Yes, exactly. So why couldn't it be with a man?"

_I should have said that she'd ruined me for "usual" women by being my friend. _Harry crossed his arms. "Because I'm not attracted to men." There. That was the truth, and he didn't understand why his friends thought that he would have the happy home and devoted monogamy that they wanted for him if he just tried a bloke. How, if he couldn't even bring himself to sleep with a man?

Hermione smiled sympathetically at him, but said, "I don't think you've really tried that. You've never been on a date with a man, and you've avoided spending too much time alone with anyone who isn't already a friend. Malfoy is the first exception to that, and, well…" She spread her hands. "We were hoping that you would find him attractive enough to experiment."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I hope that's not the only reason you're helping him. I just served him a load of bollocks about how we're both interested in seeing justice being done, if that's true."

Hermione laughed. "Oh, of course not! But the way he looks at you, and the way he leans on you, and the way that you don't push him away until you start thinking you should know better, all look promising."

"Of course he looks at me with neediness," Harry said. "He—he spent a lot of time alone." He had been going to say that Malfoy had just separated from someone he was practically obsessed by and who had been his only human contact for six years, but of course he couldn't say that. _Bloody Unbreakable Vow. _"That doesn't mean I want to use him as an experiment, or have him use me as one."

Hermione regarded him with a touch of sadness. "In trying to be fair all the time, Harry, and nice to people, sometimes you analyze things too much." Harry stared with his mouth open, trying to think of something that would really cover the monstrous injustice of Hermione accusing someone _else _of being overly analytical, but Hermione had continued, as unstoppable as she was when she started talking about a case. "You seem afraid to just _feel_. You're always thinking about consequences. You told me once that that's why you break up with the women you date, because you think that you might regret dating them someday, or you look years into the future and analyze all the ways your flaws would hurt each other. Why not let go and _try_?"

"Not with Malfoy," Harry said firmly. "He's been too hurt."

Hermione's face softened after a moment of thinking about it. "Yes, you're probably right," she said. "But I still think you're going to find your match in a man someday, Harry." She reached across the table to touch his shoulder. "We want to see you as happy in your personal life as you are in your job."

"I am, aren't I?" Harry said, and caught her hand. "I have you and the Weasleys."

Hermione gave him a warm smile, and the conversation was forgotten—at least on her part, Harry thought. He was keeping his own mind as carefully as possible away from the intense protective impulse he had towards Malfoy. The protective impulse wasn't unusual, since he had chosen his career and skills with the desire to help people, but the intensity of it was.

_All the others I've helped have mostly had people they can depend on, _Harry remind himself firmly. _Friends and family, even if they had to stay at a distance for a while. Malfoy has no one else. But it's still not a good idea to let him be too dependent on me. I want to give him what he needs, and that includes a way to stand on his own two feet._

And if Malfoy needed a lover…?

Harry shook his head in irritation. Malfoy was the one who would have to make that decision, not Harry or Hermione or anyone else. Malfoy had already had too much of someone controlling his life and making choices for him, poor bloke.

* * *

Oddly, it was the thought of Potter that came back to rescue Severus from the web of silence.

He had thought Potter had shown him those Pensieve memories only to taunt him. Why else would he do so? Potter _existed _to taunt him, and to take Draco away from him, and to pay for Severus's hard work on developing the potion that would reverse his Animagus transformation with only a lightly-made Vow. He would never want to speak about Severus anyway, so why not make it?

But the memories had nothing to do with Draco or the potion, and the longer Severus thought about them, the odder they seemed as memories chosen specifically to annoy him. Why would Potter think that it mattered to Severus that he had been shocked and upset to discover Severus was the Half-Blood Prince? What kind of taunt was it to say that he had once defended Severus, in a way, in front of his friends?

None of the memories made sense. And Severus puzzled over them and at last, in the new frame of mind that came when he was not always in control of his thoughts, flung a plank over the swamp that consumed him to something like the firm ground of rationality—if one could call anything Potter did rational.

Potter existed to help people. He might have thought he was helping Draco by taking him away from Severus. He might have thought that he was helping Severus by showing him those memories, showing him that there was one person in the world besides Draco and Albus who had once had a kind, charitable thought about him.

If _Potter_, of all people, could have those, Severus was not as irredeemable or as horrible as his new thoughts about Draco seemed to suggest he was.

Severus stood in the garden all that morning, changing position only to remain in the changing shade of the trees, and thought.

The thoughts, many times, made no sense, but they pressed and passed new images in front of his eyes. It was for the sake of those images that Severus went indoors, some time later, and sat down to write another letter.

To Potter, not Draco.


	11. Transition

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eleven—Transition_

"Master Harry Potter, sir!"

Harry jerked himself out of bed an instant, and found his wand in his hand as though he had Summoned it there. Perhaps he had. He sometimes did wandless magic in his sleep, he'd found, and the instinct was to find his wand and keep it close when he'd been without it for weeks in his bird body.

He blinked in a circle, only then realizing that it was Kreacher's voice he'd heard and not Ron's, Hermione's, or Draco's, and found Kreacher standing at the bottom of the bed. He held a large pot and a larger wooden spoon, and looked sufficiently outraged that Harry decided that he was yearning to attack, not frightened.

"What is it, Kreacher?" Harry kept his voice low, while he cast his senses out in a circle with a quick spell. He could feel the wards holding strong around the house—except in one place, where the front door faced the street. Someone was trying to tunnel through the wards there, and doing a clumsy job. Harry thought he probably would have felt it in a few seconds, even if Kreacher hadn't summoned him.

"Someone is getting into Master Harry Potter's house, Master Harry Potter sir!" Kreacher whispered, his eyes flashing. He waved his makeshift weapons. "Master Harry Potter must wake up and defend his property!"

Harry grinned at that. "Yes, you're right," he said, and began to ease down the stairs. "Come on."

As he went, he reached out to test the wards again. The magical signature pressing against them didn't feel familiar, which cut out a lot of the Aurors and Snape. (Although Harry honestly didn't think Snape would cross a shallow puddle to get Draco back, he might have decided to harm Harry's home out of revenge). That left thugs from the Wizengamot as the most likely culprits.

At the bottom of the stairs, just as he started to raise his wand, he heard someone behind him. Harry turned, and released a hard breath when he saw it was only Draco. Of course, Kreacher probably would have had time to warn him if someone had actually managed to get through the wards and behind him, but Harry had lived through the past six years by never underestimating his enemies.

"Go back to bed," Harry whispered crossly. "I can handle this."

Draco stood behind him with his hair shaggy and his eyes enormous and his chest pale in the moonlight; it was covered with scars, Harry noticed. And he noticed that because Draco didn't have a shirt on. Harry rolled his eyes. "It's all right," he said. "I promise. Go put on some robes, at least?"

"No," Draco said. "Why should I? I don't have to have robes to fight." He lifted his wand, lit it so brightly that Harry's eyes flinched away, and then leaned across Harry's shoulder to stare at the door. "What is it? _Who _is it?"

"The Wizengamot, I suspect," Harry said. "The magical signature isn't familiar, and that means it can't be any of the others who would have reason to break in here and get you back, like the Aurors." He shifted to the side, staring at the front door and hoping that no one had seen the light of Draco's wand through the windows. He doubted it, though. The window wards were some of the inner ones, and would be the last and hardest to break, immediately before they stormed in. "Mostly, we have to make sure that we don't hurt them."

"_We _have to make sure of that?" Draco's voice rose.

Harry cast him an exasperated glance. "Think. If they thought they had right on their side and could get away with a raid like this, why would they make it in the middle of the night? It would be much better to have it in the middle of the day, with a reporter or two present. Lots of publicity, lots of chances for solemn speeches to the wizarding world about how they tried, they did, but you were just too dangerous to let run around free. An attack in the middle of the night means something different. I think they want some injuries so that they have a chance to arrest you for fresh crimes. Or me," he had to add, because he thought there were some Wizengamot members who wouldn't mind seeing Harry gone from the trial as well.

Draco stood where he was, brilliant wand in hand, staring at Harry with his jaw dropped.

"What?" Harry checked over his shoulder to make sure that no one had come in while he was lecturing. Or maybe Draco had lost his composure at the sight of Kreacher, standing beside them and banging his spoon into his pot with a rhythmic measure that Harry knew was meant to intimidate. Well, with all luck the Wizengamot's raid team would include a few pure-bloods who _would _find it intimidating that a house-elf was fighting back.

"I didn't think of any of that," Draco said in a daze. "I could have, with more time, but I didn't."

Harry smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, it's the middle of the night, and you're tired and just got up. Come on. Follow my lead, and cast the brightest hexes you can, and other than that, only defensive spells." He started to move forwards.

Draco held him back, one hand pressing into the middle of Harry's spine as if he wanted to memorize the contour. "No," he murmured. "I owe you an apology. I didn't expect you to think of it, either."

"I've changed a lot since you knew me," Harry said, and stepped away. "Now, come on. Like I said, bright hexes only, We want to blind and dazzle, not injure them or convince them that we're dangerous." He thought a moment, then smiled. "Want to lead with the Conjurer's Rainbow?"

* * *

He and Potter made a good team, Draco had to think, and they fell so _naturally _into place next to each other that his back teeth ached. It was the kind of partnership that he had wished to have with Severus, but he had never felt it except during a few moments of brewing and the night they had fled the wizarding world.

Together, after Potter tore down the wards, they raised the Conjurer's Rainbow, a bright arc of light that changed color six times a second and blazed into the night, ripping it apart and incidentally revealing the Wizengamot enforcers crouched in the shadows on either side of the path that led up to the front door. Then Potter let loose a stream of fireworks, or hexes like them—Draco had to admit that he was too busy planning his next spell to be sure of that—and half the enforcers shrieked and leaped about like rabbits.

Draco had chosen his hex by then. He lifted his wand high and cried out, "_Flamma incomprehensibilis!_"

What was left of the night turned pale and dowdy in the wake of the fire Draco conjured. It was brilliant, pure white, and looked as though it ought to be hot enough to consume flesh at a touch, though it was only illusion. It rose up from behind Draco, a giant swan-colored flame, and surged forwards, a dancing taper, to coil around the edges of the enforcers' cloaks and throw them to the ground. So many more of them were shrieking now, but with fear and shock, not pain. Draco laughed aloud. The challenge to keep from injuring anyone, and thus to keep his hands and mind away from the Darker spells he knew, was stimulating.

Into the middle of everything rushed Potter's house-elf, laying about him with spoon and pot and screams of, "_Bad _wizards, _bad _wizards, to threaten Master Harry Potter sir's property!" which Draco didn't think were all that intimidating but certainly added to the distractions.

Draco turned to the side, knowing without asking that Potter was there, and sure enough, Potter was, grinning at him. He held out his hand, and Draco clasped it, also knowing without asking what spell Potter wanted to perform next.

"_Nox candelabrorum!"_ they shouted together.

Candles in golden holders immediately appeared in a circle around the wizards, and then another rank behind them, and then another rank behind that, producing illumination as bright as a Muggle spotlight Draco had once seen from a distance. The fighting stopped at once, as if that had been a signal. Later, Draco thought that the enforcers had probably been relying on darkness to cover their retreat, and had realized that this meant anyone could see their faces and commit them to a Pensieve memory.

Kreacher started to line himself up for a charge at the enemy until Potter reached out and made a chopping, commanding gesture. Then he stepped back, sulking, and Potter took a step in front of him—shielding both Draco and Kreacher at once, as Draco was quick to realize—and swept the small crowd with an unsmiling glance.

"I want to know what you're doing here," Potter said. His voice was low and commanding, and Draco felt the urge to stretch himself against the rippling touch of the air that the words passed through, as if they were a great, solid cloak he could feel draping over his shoulders. "I know you work with the Wizengamot; that's not the question. Why are you _here_? Why did you try to get through the wards?"

The enforcers exchanged glances. Most of them were younger wizards, Draco saw, in their thirties and late twenties, though he saw no one knew.

And none of them, it seemed, had been provided with instructions about what they should say if they failed. They probably weren't supposed to fail. They shuffled back and forth, and cleared their throats, and examined their wands.

"It's like that, is it?" Potter nodded, and Draco might have thought his voice was gentle, if he hadn't seen his face. "None of you wanted to be here, but you had no choice, and you expected me to come charging out, acting like a crazed murderer, so you would have an excuse to arrest me. And you probably thought Mr. Malfoy _was _a crazed murderer, so you had no objections to that part of the assignment, either." His voice deepened, but he never moved, simply standing there with his arms folded and his face still. Draco licked his lips and felt a thrumming sense of power travel through him. This was the way he had imagined someone defending him when he was a child, with undeniable words and the power to force other people to look away. Granger had given him a taste of it for the first time two days ago, but this was more exciting. "None of you considered that Mr. Malfoy has had enough mud thrown at him to stick if it was going to. None of you considered that I am a power in my own right and can defend who I can choose to defend. None of you considered that your employers are going to be willing to sacrifice you when they find out what happened, rather than admit that they've done anything wrong."

He paused, his eyes raking across faces as if he thought someone in front of him would be ashamed enough to throw himself on his knees and confess. But no one did, and Potter snorted in disgust and turned his back. "Go away," he said.

And they did. The Wizengamot enforcers melted away between the candles as though they had no choice. Few of them glanced at him or Kreacher, Draco saw; most of their attention was for Potter. And those few wore a mixture of confusion and resentment, but they went away like all the others.

Potter halted in front of Draco, studying him with kind, weary eyes. "Are you all right? I didn't ask you that, but I didn't want to in front of them."

"Of course I'm all right," Draco said. His breath was coming very short. "None of them got the chance to injure me."

"That's not what I meant," Potter said. "Are you all right that I spoke for you? I would have let you do it, but I was afraid that they wouldn't listen. They still respect me for what I did during the war."

Draco couldn't respond except in one way. He reached out and clasped Potter's shoulders, staring into his eyes. Potter knew what this meant, from the sudden stillness, but he didn't move away, though his breathing accelerated to match Draco's.

Draco leaned up and placed his lips gently against Potter's, trying to convey his gratitude and his glee and his longing.

Potter shuddered and didn't move one way or the other, forwards or back. He stood there and let Draco kiss him, and when Draco was done, he bowed his head and nodded. "Thank you," he said, voice harsh. "I know that must have cost you a lot to give."

"Nothing at all," Draco said, running his fingers lightly along Potter's arm, feeling the skin there. "Not nearly as much as it must have cost you to stand there and let me give it."

Potter blinked down at him, startled, as Draco had intended him to be, into discussing this rather than pretending that it had never happened. "I—oh, _fuck_." He smiled suddenly, but it was an awkward smile. "Look, Malfoy, I know that you need a lover again, that you're not used to being without one since you left Snape, but I don't think I can be that lover. I thought you were kissing me because it was the only way you knew how to express how you felt, but I want you to learn to be independent, and—"

"It _was _the only way I could express what I felt," Draco said calmly. So calm. He hadn't known it would be that way. He ran his fingers the other way, down Potter's arm this time, and closed them lightly around his wrist. "But not because I've become so twisted by my years with Severus that sexual kisses are the only means of intimacy I can think of. Because you did something brave here tonight, and I wanted to thank you for it." He let his hand linger one moment more on Potter's wrist, and then let it go. "Harry."

He could feel the silence of Harry's bewilderment behind him as he walked back into the house. It was pleasant.

* * *

Severus had to cross out so many different starts to the letter that he began to wonder if it was worth sending at all. But then he would think of the way that Draco had written to him, and his own thoughts, and the fact that he had ruined a _Calming Draught_, of all potions, and he would return to the stubborn facts of ink and parchment.

_I don't want you to know_

_I want you to know_

_ I want to say_

_ Draco informed me that_

So many starts, and all of them lacked something. Severus could not speak to Potter openly of the memories alone, because that might make him sound too needy, and he couldn't leave out all the new thoughts that had come up in the past few days, because that would cause Potter to think he was the same and throw away the letter without reading it. And he could not write to Draco because—

Because he did not have the courage yet. Because he was too ashamed.

Severus gritted his teeth. _Perhaps this pain will prove useful in time, but I do not yet believe that it is. _He had used pain as a goad on himself in the past, a whip that would keep him to his assigned tasks, but he had never confronted a pain this sharp and searching and personal.

It had helped, he was gradually coming to realize, that he had thought any attempts to resume his relationship with Lily hopeless. It had given him the ability to persist and yet be half-angry, half-satisfied, when she refused to listen. He had to atone, he had to grieve, but he could also give up and do the atonement, which was easier than the making up would have been.

Severus leaned back in his chair and touched his forehead with long fingers when he thought that. _How Albus would laugh, that at the age of forty-four I am facing my demons at last._

So now he had to do the making up, but he didn't think that Draco would listen to him after the last letter. Potter was his chance. And Potter had a spark of sympathy for him, as evidenced in those memories, but the spark had to be blown to life in the right way, and immediately, rather than after long waiting, as Severus would have preferred to do.

He bent over the parchment again and let the chaotic words flow from his fingers this time, trying to express his mind rather than impress someone. He would worry about how they would be received after he had written them. At least that would give him solid matter to choose from rather than the current intangible thoughts shifting in his head.

_Potter: _

_ I want you to know that I have thought about the memories that you gave me in the Pensieve. You value something in me. You were glad I survived. You were shocked to find out that I was the Half-Blood Prince, and if that means you value my brains, it is time that I proved I have them._

_ I was not ready to lose Draco, although I thought I was. I require him back, and that means that I must reconcile with him. Will you speak to him for me? Don't give him this letter, or do, if you want to. I want to reconcile. Say that I have thought about it, and I am ashamed and I am sorry._

That last word was the hardest one Severus had ever written.

_I have thought, and thought, and thought. I was more childish than Draco. I need him back. I need you back perhaps as well, because trying to resume our relationship from where we were simply will not work for me and him, and we need you as mediator. Try. Read this if you can, share it or not, and make your mind up._

_Severus Snape._

Severus laid down the letter and closed his eyes. His head ached, still, and he didn't know if that came from stress, memories, or the fact that those words were on the parchment now, where anyone could look at them. He pushed the letter away from him and stood.

He would spend the rest of his day in the lab and the gardens, confident that he had done his duty where he should. Tomorrow was soon enough to send the letter out.

* * *

"They're crumbling."

Harry raised his cup of water in a toast to Hermione and then took a deep gulp. It helped that Draco was here, as well, sitting on the other side of the table and seeming as viciously pleased as Hermione. It meant that there was someone else who could talk to Draco, so that Harry didn't feel obligated to keep looking at him.

It wasn't that he didn't _want _to look at him, or that Draco didn't deserve to be looked at, Harry thought defensively. He was just confused. He hadn't expected Draco to kiss him two nights ago and then not even press the issue.

"You're certain of that?" Draco's voice had a sliding eagerness in it that made Harry smile. He could hardly blame Draco for wanting to get back at the Wizengamot, and this was a neater revenge than Harry thought he would have been able to get on his own. Not to mention that he probably would have been arrested if he'd tried some of the plans that had to be dancing in his head.

"Oh, yes." Hermione set down her pumpkin juice with a bang and paced back and forth across the kitchen the way she had the other day. This time, though, she was more excited, and Harry could see curls escaping from the tight hold at her neck. She whirled around, caught him looking, and glanced haughtily away at Draco again, to show that she didn't care. "They didn't argue as much this time. Their voices were fainter. They had a few people there to oppose me, but their testimonies were weak and there weren't as many witnesses as they should have been. Whether or not the Wizengamot is having trouble finding people who want to witness for them, I don't know," she added thoughtfully. "I _did _expect more in the early stages of the trial, and I would say this is still early stages. But possibly it was long enough ago that no one cares as much as the Wizengamot thought they would."

"I have to be grateful that you do," Draco said, and Harry knew him well enough by now to hear the real gratitude mixed in with the stiffness.

"No, you don't," Hermione said, and turned around and grinned at him. "I'm doing it for sheer bloody-mindedness as much as anything else. How _dare _they give people biased trials in the first place!" Her teeth flashed as she bared them. "If they'd followed their own ideals of justice when they should have, instead of bowing to popular pressure, then they wouldn't have me on their trail now."

Draco and Hermione spoke a bit more about the trial as well as their hopes of rescuing at least his mother from prison, but Harry didn't spend much time listening. He toyed with his glass instead and watched Draco from under his lids.

All right. So Draco needed someone. That was obvious. Harry could be a friend, but he didn't think he could be more than that.

Draco had meant the kiss as a gesture of thanks. He'd said so. There was no reason to brood further on it. It might never go further than that.

Harry licked his lips and lowered his head. Maybe it was just because he was spending so much time in Draco's company, or because Draco was making motions of his own to show that he wasn't going to be as uptight as he could have been about Harry and Hermione's help, or because Draco did need him in fairly specific and concrete ways and gave him a battle to fight, but Harry felt, for the first time, as if a man existed he could be close to in the way that Ron was close to Hermione.

But the problem was, he couldn't do anything about his lack of physical attraction, and he didn't want to encourage false hopes in Draco—or any hopes at all, really, when any could be disastrous. Harry shook his head and took another gulp of water.

An owl surged through the window and down to the table, offering Harry a letter. Harry took it and opened it, half-expecting it to be from the Wizengamot and about the late-night raid. They'd said nothing so far, probably because admitting it would mean that they'd also have to admit the embarrassment of its failure.

He felt his cheeks heat in automatic reaction when he saw the writing and, instead of thinking _Snape_, thought _Half-Blood Prince._

"What's the matter, Harry?"

Hermione had noticed the way his face changed, of course. Harry glanced up and shook his head. "I don't know if anything is," he said. "The letter's just from a very unexpected person, that's all, and I have to decide how to handle it." He let his eyes dart over to Draco, hoping to tell him the truth he couldn't say in front of Hermione. He was not going to keep the letter secret from Draco, no matter what Snape might have said.

He was less sure that he needed to, since the first sentence his eyes had fallen on said _Say that I have thought about it, and that I am ashamed and I am sorry._

Draco was staring when Harry looked back at him again, and Hermione looked at both of them and announced that she had plenty to do with getting the final stages of the trial ready. She gathered up her parchment and was out of the kitchen so fast that Harry hardly had time to wave goodbye. Then he stared at the letter in his hand again, read through it one more time, and shook his head.

"Here," he said, holding it out to Draco. "You make sense of it."

Draco read it with a steadily setting jaw and a paling face, and Harry felt himself relax. He thought he could trust Draco to make the right decision. Draco was more likely to know, among other things, whether Snape was lying to them or not.

But then Draco stood up and flung the letter into the middle of the table, shaking his head. "I don't know," he said, voice breaking. "I would give almost everything for this to be real—especially since you said you can't be mine."

Harry flinched; Draco's eyes were bright and accusing. He took a deep breath. "I'm willing to be your friend and your helper," he said. "I'm willing to let you borrow money from me and live with me. But I don't think I can be what you need. I'm not sure that you _need _someone in the way that you needed—him."

"Then I don't know," Draco repeated, more loudly, more fiercely. "I wish he hadn't written again. Now I have to _think _about him. You answer this in any way you think best." He turned and left the room.

Slowly, reluctantly, Harry gathered up the letter and considered it again. He _wanted _to say that the headlong words on the page were honest, but it was true that he couldn't know that, not for certain.

And he didn't want to experiment with Draco's peace or his pride.

In the end, he took the letter upstairs to sleep on it, and hoped that his mind would calm down enough to let him sleep in the first place.


	12. Ripples of Change

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twelve—Ripples of Change_

Harry stared at the letter that lay on the table. It seemed to stare back. Then he told himself that was absurd, and tucked into the breakfast that Kreacher had prepared. He had to be calm and steady this morning. Hermione thought it was one of their last days of argument before the Wizengamot, and he might be called on to speak. Harry wanted to show those doubting eyes that he didn't regret his choice for Draco to live with him.

Most of the time.

Harry snatched the marmalade and dumped so much of it on his plate that he nearly ended up with it in his lap. He cast a few Cleaning Charms and then went back to eating with what he knew was viciousness, unable to help himself.

It wasn't Draco's fault that Harry felt uncomfortable around him now, constantly asking himself questions. Draco had made it clear from the first that he was bent, or at least bisexual. Harry was the one who had chosen to invite Draco into his house instead of setting him up in a place of his own.

And it wasn't that Draco was bent. At least, that wasn't the problem. Harry simply had to ask himself questions now that he didn't like, questions that had begun to come to the surface of his mind when the letter had arrived three days ago and weren't answered yet.

If he didn't find men attractive, if he had simply let Draco kiss him because it was the "polite" thing to do, why did he still lick his lips sometimes, thinking he felt the kiss again?

If he _did _feel physical attraction only for women, why hadn't he thrown Draco off, or at least politely repulsed him, when he decided that he had to kiss Harry in the wake of the Wizengamot's attack? Harry could be polite and kind to Draco without allowing that to happen. In fact, it would be kinder not to, if he really thought that he couldn't become Draco's lover and so any hopes that Draco entertained in that direction were, well, hopeless.

Harry bit into a piece of toast and watched the crumbs fly everywhere.

But he still felt the kiss, and he still was starting to think that maybe—

Maybe it wasn't the most horrible fate in the world, if he had to spend a lot of time around a man who was bent.

Harry sighed and stared at Snape's letter. At this point, he thought that was actually the simpler problem, despite his lack of solutions to it. It took a lot of courage to write back and to choose the right words, but not as much as it took to face up to his own problems, it seemed.

_Except that you sort of did._

Harry nodded. He _was _at least marginally attracted to Draco. He could admit that to himself now. The problem would be admitting it to anyone else, including the object of his affections.

But if he could do that, he could write back to Snape. He would be careful, that was all. Polite, respectful, for the sake of the fact that Draco loved the bastard.

Harry snatched the letter and went upstairs. He had at least an hour before Hermione arrived; the Wizengamot had been moving the trial sessions later and later in the day, as if they assumed that would throw Hermione off her game. All it did was give her more time to prepare in the mornings and have her arguments in order, along with the courteous smile that she usually gave the Wizengamot before mowing them down.

She'd done a lot for them in the past fortnight. Harry thought it time for _him_ to go to battle.

* * *

The letter came in with a sulky-looking owl who hopped from foot to foot, staring at him, and then abruptly turned and curled its head into the middle of its back. Severus frowned. This was uncommon behavior from a post-owl, and might indicate instructions to bite. He approached carefully, keeping one eye on the beak and talons.

But the owl stayed still, and in the end Severus was able to slip the envelope free from its bindings without a threat. The bird shook itself all over once the letter was gone, lifted its head once, and then shoved it even more deeply under a wing.

Severus stared a short time more before he understood. Trust Potter to have found the only _shy _post-owl in existence.

The combination of amusement and bewilderment proved a good one in which to start reading the letter.

_Professor Snape (that's the politest name I can call you):_

_ Draco is fine. But he doesn't understand why you're writing. For that matter, neither do I. We thought you were glad enough to end it when he walked away. And if he returned, what would the difference really be? This is going to sound brutal, but you're an old man. Set in your habits and your likings. Draco doesn't seem to be one of those likings. I don't think you can blame him for being wary._

Severus gritted his teeth and spent a long moment, through the silent flash of rage that followed, reminding himself that Harry Potter had been Muggle-raised—to the cost of all of them. He would not know that wizards were not "old" at forty-four, that some considered even seventy on the near side of youth.

_But I do think that he has strong feelings for you still, because he would have been able to dash off an indifferent letter to you himself if he didn't care. So. Here's what I'm going to recommend. That you write a letter to me as if you were writing to him, and describe at least one or two _concrete _things that you would change for him, not vague promises. I'll show it to him if he agrees, and if he doesn't, then I'll write back and tell you what I think. I'll keep a channel of communication open, which both of you seem to want, no matter how conflicted the desire is in Draco's case. I think that's the best I can do right now, and the most that it's fair to ask me to._

Below that was his signature, still looking as though he had braced his elbow on a trembling jar of pickled slugs when he attempted to write it, despite all the years that had passed since Hogwarts. Severus slowly laid the letter down, staring at it.

That was—more honest than he had thought it would be. On the other hand, he supposed that was the result to be expected when writing to Potter. Potter might play games through inattention to the words he used, which in turn would cause confusion in others, but he was unlikely to have trouble facing the sheer emotions, which Severus thought was a contributing factor in both his and Draco's problems.

Very well. Now what to do?

Now, Severus thought, he would have to make decisions, and then write back. He had what he had wanted: Potter acting as a mediator between him and Draco. It remained to be seen whether he could grasp the nettle.

* * *

"And in conclusion, the placing of my client in Azkaban would be due to outdated prejudices, no more reasonable or confirmed than the prejudices against Muggleborns that have persisted in our society."

Draco felt a thrill race through his soul as he listened to Granger. He hadn't thought much about what would happen to the girl if she survived the war when she was in school, or after, but it was clear that she was born to argue like this. She paced up and down in front of the Wizengamot, not looking at all intimidated by the fact that she had to raise her head to see their faces, her eyes bright with intelligence and her hands freely waving. Now and then they clenched into a fist, but only to emphasize a point. She gave the impression of someone who could unite passion and logic and offer brilliant points from the midst of a fire, Draco thought.

Potter leaned forwards beside him, and Draco glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on his friend, and Draco would have said, from the rapt expression on his face, that he noticed nothing else. But suddenly he turned to the side and gave Draco possibly the sweetest smile he had ever received.

Draco swallowed and looked down. Potter briefly took his hand and squeezed it. No one could see it from above, Draco knew, so he allowed the gesture, even the flutter of Potter's fingers over the skin of his wrist a moment later.

Potter had been odd this morning, both bold and tentative, as if he was building up to a conclusion or wanted to ask Draco's permission for something without being sure if he would receive it.

Draco decided not to worry about it for right now as he watched Granger's argument come to a ringing close. For the next few moments, he was going to be thinking about his freedom, not his love life.

Granger bowed to the Wizengamot and turned around to gather up the huge stack of parchment she appeared to have memorized this morning, since she hadn't looked at it once while she was talking. The Wizengamot stirred and muttered as if they were being released from a dream and then hastily got out of their chairs. Draco smirked. He couldn't blame them for wanting to deliberate in private, away from the people who had managed to unsettle them.

"Nothing for it but to wait," Potter sighed, flopping back in his chair.

Once again, his fingers brushed Draco's wrist. Draco turned his head and stared at him frankly this time. Potter blinked, then flushed and turned his back, coming up with something to speak to Granger about. From Granger's faintly bemused tone when she responded, Draco didn't think it was urgent.

_What…?_

But no matter how many answers Draco tried to fit into the pattern, he couldn't come up with anything. Potter was just nervous and reaching for reassurance, perhaps—but that wouldn't have to involve touching Draco. Potter was regretting that he had turned Draco's kiss away—but he had seemed so adamant. Potter was nervous about something else.

Well, what?

_Perhaps the letter to Severus? I haven't heard him mention that lately._

Draco spent the time between the Wizengamot's departure and their return in more of a ferment than he'd thought he would, although he didn't say anything. His gaze stayed on Potter more than Granger, despite Granger smiling at him several times. He kept coming up with half-concrete theories and having to discard them. And then he would decide that certain elements of the theories he'd already formed were better and return to them, worrying at them like a stubborn dog with a bone.

The Wizengamot filed back into the room sooner than Draco had thought they would come. He swallowed and sat up very straight. Granger took up her position in front of the table as if she meant to guard him from a charge.

Potter sat down beside Draco and brushed his hand over Draco's again, and Draco was certainly going to say something sharp to him _later_, when they had more time and he wasn't being sickened by visions of this all being for nothing, that he might have to go into Azkaban and away from the clean sunlight and the unexpectedly pleasant company.

"Yes, well." The woman chosen to speak for the Wizengamot wasn't one that Draco knew. She had pale hair, neither quite grey nor quite white, and she cleared her throat every half-second. "Yes. Well. We have decided."

"I thought so," Granger said, with a deadly courtesy that made Draco have to nip his lips, and the woman turn pale.

"We declare that Draco Malfoy is a free man, without danger of going to Azkaban, and without danger of being convicted for Death Eater crimes in the future, as long as he does nothing wrong again," the woman said.

Draco barely heard the addition of those last words. He had to shut his eyes and then sit there, his body trembling, paralyzed, although what he wanted was to caper up and down the floor with joy.

Potter did quite enough of that for him, in a way, by springing to his feet with a wild whoop and flinging his arms around Draco. Draco breathed in the scent of salt and skin and hair and stared up at him. Potter bent towards him, eyes so wide that Draco could see how one might drown in them, the way so many people had at school and during the war and probably after that, if he really had dated a lot.

"You're free," Potter whispered. "I'm so happy."

The Wizengamot members were retiring again, as if disgusted, and Granger was pacing towards them, as sleek and unruffled as a great cat that had wounded its prey. "I'm happy that you're free," she said. "I'll give you a few days to recover, and then I think we should start the next part of this project."

Draco, dazed, stared at her. "What?" As far as he knew, now that he was free, he could do other things by himself, such as trying to find a place in the Potions economy of the British wizarding world.

Granger raised her eyebrows in what looked like slight disapproval. "Getting your mother free, of course. She was condemned in much the same unfair manner."

Draco had to put his hand on her arm wordlessly, because there was no way that he could speak.

* * *

It had been only a few hours since the Wizengamot verdict, but Harry felt as if he had lived through a whole month. He found it hard to keep his eyes away from Draco, and his mouth filled with saliva and laughter too often for him to feel normal.

It was wonderful that Draco was free, of course. Harry hadn't lost the giddy joy that had consumed him when he heard the words. And he was grateful to Hermione for doing such a good job and being _willing _to do such a good job for someone it was reasonable that she still might dislike.

But it was more than that.

Draco was more than that.

Harry could say honestly that he still wasn't drooling over the man's arse, or brooding on the color of his hair at night, or starting awake with an erection because he'd had an erotic dream. It wasn't the substance of crushes like the ones he'd had on women before and which seemed to occur between men in the wizarding novels he'd read to humor Hermione. If he wanted to go on saying that he found women more attractive than men, that was certainly true.

But it was also true that he found Draco _literally _more attractive than most women. His shoulders seemed to call for touching, and the nape of his neck, and his arms, and his hands—relatively safe places that Harry could brush with his fingers without drawing much attention. His bowed head and frowning mouth made Harry want to lift and trace them, respectively, before he made a joke that turned the frown into a smile. He wanted to sit by and listen when Draco was talking about potions, although he didn't understand most of it; that was for the pleasure of hearing Draco's voice ripple and break on his ears.

_Can you like someone even if you don't fantasize about sleeping with him?_

_Or fantasize about it much, anyway._

Hermione had given him a knowing look before she left. Harry had tried his best to ignore it. After all, he hardly knew if Draco would feel the same way. There was Snape, still. There was the fact that Harry had rejected him once, and Draco might be proud enough to resent that and not want it to happen again. And there was no saying that Draco found _Harry _pleasant to look at or be around. He could be a matter of convenience, more than anything else, and that kiss the other day a way to say thank you.

Maybe.

Harry got the chance to figure it out when Kreacher brought them dinner, a delicate roast beef that made Harry's mouth water just thinking about it. Harry walked behind Draco's chair to get to his own, and his hand had gone out and trailed lightly along the nape of Draco's neck before he thought about it.

Draco spun his chair around and stood up with a muttered curse. Harry recoiled and stared at him. "What's the matter?"

"You keep _touching _me," Draco said, his voice deep and his eyes looking as if they had sunken back into his skull. "I hate it, because I don't know what it means. I thought it was an accident, but it's happened too much. So. What does it mean?"

Harry swallowed air and stood there shifting awkwardly from foot to foot for a moment. As if someone had held up a crystal ball and showed him the future, he saw the two ways that this could unfold.

He could smile and shrug and dismiss Draco's concerns, and the subject would retreat into the background. And Draco would start avoiding him more often, and then eventually find another lover of his own, maybe even Snape again, who would give him what he actually wanted.

Harry could answer, and then—

The crystal ball failed there. There was no guarantee that it would work out.

He decided that he would rather step into the unknown than the predictable future that first choice would make for him, and so he did it, though he gnawed at the inside of his cheek for a long moment first.

"I think I'm more attracted to you than I thought I was," he admitted. "I haven't slept with a man before. I hadn't thought—well, there was no reason _to _think about it when I'd only ever found women interesting. But now I think you might be the exception."

Draco's eyes narrowed. Harry couldn't blame him, and he winced, but then braced himself. It wasn't as though Draco could do anything that would damage him permanently, like kick him out of the house. It would hurt if he decided to go somewhere else or to distrust Harry from now on, yes, but Harry would survive it.

Even if it felt like he might not.

"This is abrupt," Draco said coldly. "Is it because I'm your favorite kind of person to rescue, the helpless little one who's dependent on you?"

"No," Harry snapped. "I never date people I rescue, most of the time. I want to help them, and dating doesn't _help _them. It's something I want to do when they can agree that they want it, too. I've had more than enough of people deciding they want a hero for a boyfriend," he added bitterly, thinking about two of the women he'd dated right after Ginny. He'd probably been more vulnerable to it, then, because he had wanted to prove that he wasn't a failure. But that didn't mean he would do it again.

"I don't think of you as a hero," Draco said. "I think of you as someone who helped me, and I'm still not sure it's right."

Harry nodded, not looking away from him now. He thought he should show how seriously he took this. "I know. I'll do what I can to help you. But you have to be the one to make the decision."

Draco's hand curled into a fist on the tabletop. "What about Severus? What did you say in the letter you sent him?"

"That he should make concrete changes if he wanted you back," Harry said, and tried to sound normal and not jealous. From the sharp glance Draco gave him, he wasn't sure he'd succeeded. "And that I would be willing to show you the letter when it came, if you wanted to see it. He hasn't sent it yet, of course. I wouldn't keep that from you," he added, wondering if Draco thought he would.

But Draco made a dismissive gesture. "You haven't thought about the perils of trying to date me when Severus still has a claim?"

"He doesn't have a claim unless you decide that he does," Harry said, startled into simply speaking of his thought process. "And the same thing goes for me. I'm not going to hold back anymore because of what I fear. I did that, and it was useless and just resulted in a lot of lies to myself."

"So it's my decision." Draco's eyes had almost vanished in the slits he'd made of them. He cast a glance at their food and then shook his head as though denying to himself that it was getting cold. "That's the case."

"Yes," Harry said. "After you've gone so long without the ability to make up your mind, you deserve every chance."

Draco ran his fingers over the table. Then he said, "I don't think I'm hungry," and turned and charged towards the stairs.

Harry shrugged in resignation and sat down to eat his dinner, summoning Kreacher so that he could put Draco's food away and keep it warm for him. He had done the best he could, and spoken nothing but the truth. It was astonishing how much lighter that made him feel.

Of course, Draco might choose to go back to Snape. Or move out. Or date Harry but then _still _go back to Snape.

But it would be his choice. And that was the point; that was the thing he had wanted to help Draco do. Harry wouldn't have felt comfortable making the choices for both of them any longer by keeping his attraction to himself. Draco had a lot to deal with, but it was all out in the open and he knew what it was. If he chose to ignore some of it, then at least he could.

* * *

Draco paced up and down in his room and tried to imagine what kind of letter he would write to his friends about this situation, assuming he still had any friends who were talking to him.

_Dear Blaise, it's not everyone in the wizarding world who can boast that he had a proposition from Harry Potter as well as letters from a former lover in the same week, but now I can…_

_Pansy, you'll never believe how many people want me, or who…_

_Millicent, how did you make that decision to move out of your parents' house? I could use some advice…_

Draco stopped and laughed aloud, but cut it off after a moment. The sound was painful, in more than one way.

The last letter was the truest one. He had wanted more freedom. And suddenly he had it, the world around him expanding in a dozen dizzy directions. Draco wasn't sure that he _could _make all the choices that he had to. What to do about Potter, how far to go with Potter, whether Severus was worth listening to, what concessions he would demand if he was, what he should do next, whether he should wait until after his mother, at least, was free before he made any decisions at all…

Draco shuddered and bowed his head. No, he didn't know what to do, and it hurt. It hurt more than he had ever imagined it could, sitting in his small, cramped garden and dreaming of more space.


	13. Shifting

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirteen—Shifting_

Harry studied the list in front of him dubiously. It _claimed _to be a list of the most popular potions sold in Britain. Harry had picked it up for Draco from a shop that specialized in selling potions ingredients and textbooks, so he thought it should be accurate, but he really didn't know enough about the subject to be sure.

He kept his eyes fastened on the parchment, although they badly wanted to look up when Draco came down the stairs and slid into the chair on the other side of the table. Kreacher had reported that Draco had never come back for his dinner last night after he bolted upstairs. Harry hoped that he would eat a large breakfast now. He didn't want to drive Draco away from his meals because of what he did or said.

"Potter."

Harry started and glanced up. Considering what had happened between them last time, he hadn't thought Draco would be the one to begin the conversation. But he nodded, cautiously pleased. "Draco," he said.

Draco closed his hand into a fist around his knife and took what sounded like a deep, calming breath. Then he turned around, glared into Harry's eyes—obviously the calming breath had failed—and demanded, "Why do you call me by my first name when I keep calling you by your last name?"

Harry blinked. "I'm sorry," he said. "Do you want me to stop?"

"I want an answer to my question." Draco sounded as if he was grinding his teeth.

"Because I want to," Harry said, deciding that he could be honest if he couldn't be less irritating. "Because I feel closer to you than I did, now that we've gone through what we did. And we'll be going through more of that," he added, "since Hermione is doing the research to find out how we can free your mother." He hesitated, then pushed the parchment he'd been reading across the table. "I picked this up this morning. I thought you might be able to choose the potions you're best at brewing and focus on them first, so that you can build up a reputation as a Potions master."

"I never took my mastery," Draco muttered, although he picked up the list and scanned it with an unenthusiastic look.

"There must still be potions you can brew," Harry said, and tried not to feel as though he were tossing hollow cheerful words at a sullen teenager. _Draco has the right to be sullen, given all the pressure that you and Snape are putting on him._ "And I can lend you money for the ingredients, until the Wizengamot processes the paperwork and gives you back access to the Malfoy vaults."

Draco laughed, and the sound was so derisive that Harry winced. "And you really think that they _will_? Oh, poor naïve Potter."

"Yes, they will," Harry said. "I agree that ordinarily, they'd delay and try to avoid giving you your rightful possessions. But this time, you have Hermione on your side. They'll speed up the process just to get rid of her."

Draco gave a smile that looked as if he'd had it pried out of him against his will. "You're right about that." He paused, and then, as if he'd remembered that he was supposed to be angry, his forehead tightened again. "I want to know why you think I'd accept a loan. It's condescending."

Harry rolled his eyes. "How is it condescending to lend money to someone who can eventually pay you back? Now, if we'd lost the case and there was no option but for you to earn money illegally or live off me for the rest of your life, then I agree, it would be condescending to call this a loan."

Draco leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes, breathing to calm himself down again. He dug his fingers into his arms. Harry eyed them in concern, and was just about to stand up and come around the table to free Draco's fingers gently when Draco looked at him again and said, "I don't need your help."

"All right," Harry said. "Does that mean that you want to move out and find a house of your own?" He was determined to give Draco what Draco wanted, even though his heart gave a great, sudden thump at the thought of losing his company.

"Stop being so fucking _calm_ about this!" Draco leaped to his feet and leaned over the table. It caused the dishes to tilt alarmingly, and Kreacher appeared with a squeak to rescue them. Draco didn't seem to notice. "How can you act as though you just want to help me and nothing more?"

"Because," Harry said, holding himself tightly under control, "that's what I do want. You're the one who has to make the choices, but I'm the one who can help supply you with the time and freedom to make them. If you want to leave, then you can. I won't hold you here. You aren't a prisoner."

"But you have the right to demand that I be," Draco whispered. "You've done so much for me."

Harry winced, thinking of the way that the debt would curdle in the back of Draco's throat. Someone as proud as he was had probably been smarting about the debt he owed all along, but while he was still reeling from the novelty of his freedom and the hope of winning the trial, it was possible to ignore the bitterness. Now it had all fallen on him at once.

"No one has the right to demand your gratitude or hold you prisoner because they helped you," he said as gently as he could. "It's true that I _like _helping people, and so letting me do it _pays _me, in an odd way, and pays Hermione, more than it would someone like Snape. But if you want to walk away from us, then you can. If you want to go back to him, you can." God, those words were hard to say, and Harry had his doubts about whether Draco would really be making a free decision if he went back to Snape or simply letting his fear of the outside world control him, but it wasn't his placed to say so. "It's up to you."

* * *

Draco wished that Harry Potter didn't have to be so fucking _Gryffindor _about everything.

He'd thought the git had changed when he first discovered who he was, because there was no way that he would have helped Draco in school, and neither would Granger. But it seemed he had only changed in order to become more annoying and more generous and more determined to let Draco have his freedom.

Draco stared into the anxious green eyes across from him and bit the inside of his cheek. Then he said, "What if I don't want either of those? What if I want to stay here and yet not receive any of your help?"

"Then you can do that," Potter said at once, as Draco had known he would. "It might mean a delay in how long you have before you can start brewing potions, though."

Draco shuddered, feeling as though someone had stroked a feather over his skin. In a way, he was desperate to begin earning his own money at once, because that would mean he had a shorter period of time until he could move out from under Potter's roof.

Then he thought of living alone, and the dizziness and the despair almost overwhelmed him. What would he _do_, living alone? Potter's company was almost intolerable at times, but it was better than nothing.

"I have to think about it," he muttered. He would have liked to go upstairs and shut himself in his room again, but he was too hungry for that, having abandoned his dinner as a matter of principle last night. He sat down and reached for the marmalade.

"Yes, I thought you might," Potter said quietly.

Draco shuddered again, but this time it was truly a flicker of irritation rippling across his skin, rather than a feather-touch. His life and all their lives, he thought irrationally, would have been easier if Harry Potter was a bit more selfish.

Then he wondered whose lives he was thinking of. It took him the full breakfast to track the thought to its origin and realize that he was thinking of himself, Potter, and Severus as some kind of strange unit.

* * *

Being honest was harder than he had expected.

Severus had spent years thinking that Gryffindors were simply foolish, too foolish to master the deceptions and defenses that would guard their feelings. Now he was inclined to think they were both strong and insensitive, because they did not appear to think continually about how others would see their actions, emotions, and decisions.

Severus had too much of the sensitivity, however, and so tore up the letter he was writing to Potter several times before he was satisfied by what emerged.

_Potter: _

_These are the changes I will promise to make. I will not spend my entire day in the lab, but at least three hours outside it. Those hours can be spent taking meals with Draco, speaking with him, reading in company with him, and doing other things, should he give me the chance to make up for what I have failed._

_The second change involves my teaching. I spent more of my time brewing the potions I was an expert in than in instructing Draco how to become an expert. I am willing to help him attain a Potions mastery._

_Show this letter to him and ask if it is acceptable. If it is, then I would ask that Draco and you both visit me within a week._

_Severus Snape._

Severus leaned back in his chair and stared at the letter. There were all sorts of twists of phrase in there that could make him vulnerable, especially the implication that it was a failure for him to have done what he had done in the past.

But he could not think of any other way to write it. If he did not make promises of some kind, he would never get Draco back, and if he did not do as Potter suggested, then he might give up Potter's mediation.

Besides…

Severus twitched, and was glad that he could at least still distinguish between ideas that it was appropriate to put into a letter and ideas that it would never be appropriate to do that with.

Besides, the thought ran, he would be flattered to see Potter in his house again. He wanted to look at him with new eyes, the understanding that those memories had been real, and, that for the first time since Albus, he had someone who understood his faults and yet appeared to value him.

Severus grimaced and shook his head. He would have to remember to be careful when Potter and Draco both came to speak with him, if they ever did. He would betray too much to Draco's quick eyes and Potter's knowing ones—unexpectedly knowing, and probably worse now that he was an adult—if he simply acted as he did when alone.

He rose to his feet and went to the lab, but as always, the silence spilled in after him, and it was a long time before he felt comfortable beginning his brewing.

* * *

Draco sat still for so long after Harry had shown him Snape's letter that Harry was afraid the letter had distressed him. He tried to keep his concern out of his eyes as he dug into the lunch Kreacher had provided, sandwiches covered in thick sauces with only a bit of meat or lettuce peering out here and there. Harry didn't know exactly what the sauces were made of, and he didn't plan to ask as long as they continued to taste good.

"I want to go home."

Draco's voice was so soft that Harry didn't think he'd heard him correctly. He swallowed and asked, "What?"

"I want to go home." Draco turned and stared at him. "I should never have left Severus in the first place. I should have remained with him and tried to work out a solution to the problems, instead of dashing off with the first person who offered."

Harry hissed and shut his eyes. "And do you think he would have offered these changes if you hadn't gone?" he asked. _Rational, try to be rational and understand. _"I don't think so. Things would have stayed exactly the same. You'd been trying for six years to get him to pay more attention to you, and he didn't. Why do you assume he would have started if I hadn't come?"

"You don't know him." Draco didn't say more than that, and when Harry opened his eyes and looked at him, his face was white and flat. He toyed with the letter as though it drew his fingers against his will.

"I know him well enough to know that he'd sunk into a routine," Harry said quietly. "_You _had become routine for him. I know that it made you miserable, and you actually made the decision to leave him twice, although he persuaded you out of it the first time." His voice started to sour, and he swallowed to try and control it. "Do you think it would have changed on its own? Be honest."

"I don't have to be." Draco stood up restlessly and turned his back on the table. "You said I was free to make my decision, and I've made it. I want to go back to Severus."

"I hoped that you would make the decision because you really were considering your desires and your needs," Harry said, deciding that he might as well go full steam ahead. Draco wasn't listening to sensible words. He might need a bit of a shock. "Instead, it sounds like you're afraid of your choices and you just want to retreat into your safe little cave and pull the door shut after you."

Draco whirled around, his face now so bloodless that Harry half-thought he might faint. "You don't _understand!_ It's not fear!"

"Yes, of course not," Harry said. He stood up and leaned across the table to emphasize his point. Draco acted like it was a hardship for him to listen to Harry when he was being nice and trying to give Draco as much freedom as possible. So Harry would be a bit more callous and give him what he wanted. "That's why you're talking about nothing changing, rather than going back to Snape and making a compromise. Only people who are afraid act as though change is evil and an intolerable situation is better than it is."

Draco shut his eyes. Then he asked in a clipped voice, "Are you going to lecture me, or are you going to help me pack? Or were all those grand words about standing by me no matter what I chose just hot air?"

Harry shook his head. "I'll help you pack. And then I'll go with you to meet with Snape, because he said in his letter that he wanted both of us to be there."

Draco frowned at him. "But I don't want you to." He said it in such a petulant way, turning his head to the side, that all of Harry's suspicions were confirmed. Draco was acting childish, _knew _he was acting childish, and still wanted help to hold those suspicions down in his own mind and convince himself that he was making a mature, thoughtful decision instead of a stupid one.

"Snape does, though," Harry said, and gave him a smile that he suspected was unpleasant, because Draco flinched. "You have to consider his wants, too, since you're going back to live with him and you think that you can change him by working things out. It wouldn't be a very good sign to ignore his words from the beginning, would it?"

Draco stomped out of the room. Harry rolled his eyes and made to follow, only to pause when Kreacher popped into the kitchen and looked anxiously at him.

"Should Kreacher be saving Master Harry Potter and Master Draco Malfoy's lunch, sir?" He was wringing his hands, and it would probably progress to ear-tugging in a minute, which was hard to get him to stop.

Harry sighed. "Why don't you put it under Preservation Charms and pack it up, Kreacher? And make an extra lunch that we can take with us." It occurred to Harry that Snape might welcome something he hadn't had to cook himself as a peace offering when they all but fell into his lap that afternoon.

Kreacher beamed at him, bowed, and then Apparated out of the kitchen. Harry stood a moment listening to the loud banging noises from overheard before he followed, slowly.

* * *

Draco didn't understand why other people didn't understand why this was so _hard _for him.

The whole world was open around him, but to get on in it, he was dependent on help. He hated that. He wanted to be free as soon as possible, but he also wanted to be protected. It would have been pleasant if Potter had let him stay in the house but made the decision for him, perhaps by forbidding Draco to leave or telling him that he had to spend a certain amount of time brewing potions to repay Potter for his hospitality. That way, Draco could have—

_Could have rebelled and felt justified in leaving._

Draco clenched his jaw. He seemed to have become a lot more reflective lately, since he had left Severus. He hated it.

Yes, he knew it was wrong to leap back into Severus's house and act as though nothing had changed and he should never have left. He'd needed to leave. But he didn't know what to _do _now. Waiting too long to make up his mind would make him look weak. Relying too much on Potter's money and help would make him look weak. At least Severus had never acted as though he thought that Draco was weak for living with him.

_No, he thought you were childish instead._

Draco straightened his spine and took a sip of the tea that Severus had had waiting for them when he and Potter arrived. Draco still didn't know how he had done that, since Potter had sent the owl telling Severus what would happen less than an hour before they left. Severus had always seemed too busy to brew more tea than would fill a single cup, and Draco had drunk that by mistake before and gagged from the foul taste.

Severus sat on the edge of the couch in the drawing room, staring at them both with brilliant eyes. Draco could read emotion on his face better than he'd been able to in years, and he didn't think Severus was staring at him with more yearning than at Potter.

_What does he want with _him? At the moment, Draco thought he would be happiest if Harry Potter simply departed from his life and never reminded Draco of his existence again.

"So," Potter said. "That's the way things have worked out. Draco would like to come back, and we'd both like to see if you'd make the changes that you talked about." He sipped at his tea and put it down on the table next to him, smiling at Severus with only a hint of tightness around his mouth. "Are you going to?"

Severus said nothing for long moments, though his hands twitched in his lap. Then he turned to Draco. "Why do you want to come back?" he asked.

Draco opened his mouth, then shut it. He hadn't expected Severus to ask that question. He had sounded so desperate to have Draco back in his owls, why wouldn't he simply accept his fate for fear of frightening Draco away again?

"I should never have left," he said.

Severus's eyes flared. "Yes, you should have," he said.

Draco gaped at him. Severus raised his eyebrows, and Draco became aware of how unattractive such an expression was. He shut his mouth and scowled at the floor.

"If you had not left," Severus said, "I would not have realized that you needed to. You would have not have lived free of the threat of Azkaban, with the choice to return into the larger wizarding world. I would not have promised to makes these changes."

Draco shook his head. He had to admit the truth of what Severus was saying, but since when had _Severus _started to admit that truth? "You would have made the changes eventually, when you saw how miserable you were making me."

Severus gave him a thin smile. "I did not care for six years, or five, if you wish to accept the hypothesis that our first year with each other was happy. What would have changed my mind, except a threat with such weight?"

Draco shook his head again. "But you have to realize that it's intimidating for me to leave," he whispered. "Coming back was the best option."

"That's what I don't understand," Potter said, leaning forwards. "For weeks, you said that it was the worst option, unless Professor Snape changed." The "Professor" title was a concession to politeness, Draco thought, but it sounded horrid and fake and Potter should have known better than to use it. "And he did promise some changes, but he hasn't put them into practice yet, and he hasn't discussed whether _he _thinks it's best for you to just move back in and try to take up where you left off. I don't understand, Draco. What are you coming back to? What made you change your mind?"

Draco turned on him. He had intended to control his tongue and his temper. Potter lived in a world so different from his that he thought an attempt to explain would be stupid, anyway. But _this _was the last straw. Why couldn't Potter stop pushing and pushing and _pushing_ and just accept that some things were hard for other people that weren't hard for him?

"It's _hard _to make a decision," he snapped. "I don't know what I want yet! I don't know what would be best! What if I make a mistake? What if I do something that causes others to hate me, to laugh at me, to humiliate me?"

"You keep going through it," Potter said slowly, a perplexed look in his eyes. "I was worried about my decision to leave the Auror program, because I knew that some people would hate me for it—and some of the other Aurors still do—and it would hurt Ron, because he always thought we would be partners. The problem is that you can't please everyone no matter what, so it's best to please yourself." He paused, an arrested look on his face. "Or are you thinking about making a social comeback someday, and that's why you're worried about what other people might say?"

"I'm not thinking of that," Draco said. It was hard to keep the words coherent. He was shaking. "I'm not thinking of _anything_. I don't know what I want to do yet, and you keep pushing me to make a decision!"

"Even staying in my house and not doing anything right now is a decision of its own kind," Potter said quietly. "It's fine if you want to do that, but you have to choose that, rather than someone else choosing for you."

"And I want someone who _will_," Draco said bitterly, even as he knew that that wasn't what he wanted at all. He wanted to make the _right _decision, the one that wouldn't let him fail, the one that would ensure he never made a mistake again. He was so tired of failing.

And he knew that decision didn't exist, either, but that didn't stop the desire.

He stalked out of the drawing room and into the gardens. He needed peace and distance and to _breathe_, and he wished there were people in the world who might understand how someone could want security and freedom at the same time, who could understand that of course Draco would make mistakes but why he might want the assurance that he wouldn't.


	14. Quite the Conversation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fourteen—Quite the Conversation_

Potter, Severus noted, sat on the edge of his seat looking stunned after Draco had stormed out, which at least proved this was no part of a plan they had concocted together. Severus raised an eyebrow and extended the kettle silently. Potter hesitated, then nodded, and Severus poured tea into his cup until it lapped at the brim.

"I didn't expect that," Potter said blankly. He picked up his cup and sipped, then sipped again, and turned to look out into the gardens. Severus knew from experience that Draco would have already gone deep enough not to be visible, however. He always did when he was wrestling with a problem that was mostly his fault. "I thought he'd make a decision when he realized anything he _did _required a decision."

"That is the part of Draco's character that remains unfathomable to me," Severus murmured. "He wishes to avoid mistakes that would expose his vulnerabilities to others, but he believes that hovering in midair, leaving the choice in suspense, will not expose him. I have never understood why. Enemies are the most likely to attack when your uncertainty is apparent, rather than a wrong certainty."

Potter looked at him politely, as if such thoughts had never passed through his head, and Severus supposed they had not. What would _Potter _have to fear, he thought with a slight sneer, from seeming unprepared? He had plenty of people around to guard him and sacrifice their lives for him if someone dared to attack.

Then Severus remembered the way Potter had stepped forwards and gazed into his eyes when Severus thought he was dying, and the way that Potter had—he must have—walked to what _he_ thought would be _his_ death at the Dark Lord's wand, for the sake of saving the world.

_I must learn to remember that my former perceptions of him were not all correct, _he thought with a slight frown, and sipped at his tea.

"Maybe that's what he's afraid of," Potter said. "But he's also afraid of having too many choices, I think. He got used to a confined life, a cage, and when he's offered room to spread his wings, the cage feels safer."

"Confess what you are thinking," Severus said. His voice sharpened, and he was glad, because that meant he could deal with Potter's words and not feel as ashamed or awkward as he did when he thought of the seventeen-year-old boy walking to his death. "I am the one who made him that way. I am the one who built the cage."

Potter looked at him evenly. "I was trying to avoid bringing that up, but yes, you are. Your changes sound like they could be a good start, but no, I don't entirely trust you not to confine him again. So there."

Severus bit back a response. He would not be a child in these contests no matter how much Potter and Draco seemed to wish he were. When he had waited long enough for the flush to fade from Potter's face, he said, "You seem to have forgotten the other part of my letter."

Potter's eyes narrowed. "Which was?"

"Your presence," Severus said. "I wished to speak to both you _and _Draco. If you fear that I might build the cage again, here is your chance to bend the bars."

Potter blinked only once, thank Merlin, before he subjected Severus to a serious stare. "Yeah, that was the part of the letter that puzzled me. You have to please Draco. He's the one who has to believe you. I think it's a mistake if he just comes back and everything's the same, but I couldn't actually force him to stay away. You must have known, though, what I'd say if I was here. So why invite me?"

Severus half-shut his eyes and waited until his fingers, hidden behind the teacup, had ceased their trembling. This was the part of the interaction he had dreaded most. It was one thing to place the emotions in a letter, where the spiky black letters could bury any emotion in straight ink lines. It was another to acknowledge the same truth with eyes, skin, hands, and voice all ready to betray one.

"Because your memories of me in the Pensieve were genuine," he said at last. "It has been too long since someone approached me that way, thought of me that way. I want to know why you managed to cling to those memories after I fled from justice. The memories I gave you might have been enough to clear me of Albus's murder, perhaps, but not from any—unfair treatment that you might have received from me in school. And then, for me to become to a fugitive instead of staying for a trial would have been enough to make many of your kind decide that I was guilty after all."

It was like drawing his heart out and placing it in Potter's fist to crush. But the words were said now, their echo hanging in the air, and Severus could not take them back.

* * *

Harry sat there and blinked. It felt like all he could do for at least several minutes.

Then he came back to himself, and a sharp spark of pity burned into his heart.

How much must it mean to Snape, if he got this emotional over a few memories? It said how few people he had in his life who would give him the notion that he mattered. Draco had told him and told him, Harry thought, but for some reason he was deaf to that. For some reason, it was Harry's memories that got through.

But meanwhile, Snape had implied a question, and Harry didn't think he would want the pity. He replied carefully. There were a limited number of things he could say and be honest, and some of those were harsh.

"I never thought you'd fled because you had something else to hide. I knew enough about what you did and why you did it to be sure of that. I thought you fled because the Wizengamot was biased and you'd heard about their other condemnations. How could they have judged you fairly when they put the woman who saved my life by lying to Voldemort in prison?"

Snape rested a hand on his left arm at Voldemort's name, and only then opened his eyes. His expression looked somewhere between bewildered and trapped. "You destroyed my lab when you were here. That is not the action of someone who thinks I am an innocent man."

"I can think that you deserved better than you got, and still think you were a right bastard to Draco," Harry pointed out.

Snape stared at him as if this were a foreign concept. Harry smiled grimly, feeling a bit pleased for once that _he _was the one making confusing statements, and finished his tea.

"Do you approve of Draco coming back to join me, or do you not?" Snape asked at last, a snarl in the back of his voice.

"Of course not," Harry said easily. "I told you, I don't think he's making the decision from the right motives. The desire to bury your head in the sand is almost _never _the right motive. And I think he needs more of a spine, and he's not going to get it living here with you, when you tread so heavily on his spine because he's lying on the floor."

Snape seemed to swell up like a bullfrog. Harry picked up his cup, remembered the tea was gone, and got himself more, grinning. He wanted to see how Snape would respond. If it was with some blast of vitriol based on Harry's dad, well, then at least Harry would know Snape hadn't really changed.

But Snape's commitment to having Draco back must have gone deeper than Harry realized, because he shut his eyes, turned his head as though feeling sunlight on his face would help him to calm down, and murmured, "You realize that you have implied the impulse to conquest is what I desire in my relationship with Draco, and nothing else." A faint pause, so faint that Harry probably wouldn't have noticed it except that conversations with Snape always put all his senses on hyper-alert, and then he said, "And in my relationship with you."

Harry would have fallen, except that he was already sitting down and didn't really want to spill his tea, so that wasn't an option. He settled for swallowing and saying, "Well, yes. I think you demonstrated that you wanted him to stay so you could have control over him when you slept with him just to stop him leaving."

Snape's robes rippled as if he had tensed under them and then relaxed again. "And my relationship with you?"

"What relationship would that be?" Harry asked. "Patient and counselor, which seems to be what you're asking me for, or professor and student, which we seem to be returning to every half-minute?"

* * *

Potter was more irritating and confusing than Severus had thought he would be.

Of course, he had pictured a more sympathetic version of the boy he knew, and clearly that wasn't true, either. Potter had learned to bear insults with some grace, and to insult back, in the years since Severus had last seen him. And he seemed to have the ability to keep his temper. So much of what Severus had known of him had come from his response to baiting that this left him floundering and vulnerable, and unexpectedly sure that he knew what Draco was feeling, faced with this new, calm Harry Potter.

_He wants the comfort of familiarity. Potter doesn't give it to him. All the grasping and clinging you can do, all the barbs you can throw, just slide off that wall._

Severus slowly opened his eyes and decided that the most effective tool at the moment would be something Potter could not have conceived of. "I was thinking of the relationship of friend and friend."

He took deep pleasure in the way Potter's eyes widened and flashed as if his words had been in an incomprehensible language. Then he sat back, cradling the cup of tea in both hands despite its smallness, and said carefully, "I don't know that that's possible."

"Why not?" Severus was on surer ground here. Some of the most painful and inconceivable moments had passed, and he was free to consider what the consequences of his words might be. "If your memories show that you can think well of me, if you must remain with us long enough to prove that my changes are real to Draco and see that Draco is deciding to return of his own free will, what would we be but friends?"

"I don't know that there's a word for it," Potter said, looking highly disturbed now, "but I'm bloody well sure it's not friends."

Severus laughed. In a strange fashion, he was beginning to enjoy this. "Why not? Do you fear so much to admit me into your mind, to admit Draco into your life? Or perhaps not the last, since you willingly adopted him when he wanted to follow you home."

"Shut up!" Potter snapped, with an edgy intensity that fit the boy Severus had known. "You have no idea what it's been like, having him there."

"He gets on your nerves that much?" Severus raised his eyebrows. "I am amazed that you do not wish to hand him back to me, in that case."

Potter bowed his head. The tips of his ears were flushed, and he made continual nervous reaches into thin air to stroke the tops of nonexistent tables or fold back the pages of imaginary books. Watching him, watching the flush spread down the sides of his face to his throat, Severus had a sudden suspicion.

"Or is it he touches other things than your nerves, when he is there?" he asked softly, and was rewarded by Potter jerking his head up and glaring at him with a hunted expression.

"Look, I didn't plan it this way," Potter said, and tapped an agitated foot on the floor. "But he kissed me and that made me think of things I was determined not to think of, and then I was thinking about him all the time in different ways, and—" He shook his head. "Anyway, it doesn't matter," he said, with what sounded like a deliberate effort to return to that unbreakable calm. "He let me know that he doesn't really think about me in that way, and it was just adding to the stress of the decisions that he had to make, so I backed off. He can come back and you can resume your relationship without any interference from me."

"Yes, of course," Severus said, and he did not recognize his tone of voice or know what he would say next, as if a strange had temporarily possessed his larynx. "You would not stand in my way even to acquire someone you want, would you? You would give up the last dose of a life-saving potion to a stranger. Your own needs do not count."

"What?" Potter glared at him. "You're not making any sense. I'm not thinking about _acquiring _anyone. I'm saying—and thinking—that I'm attracted to Draco, and it's strange since I haven't been attracted to any man before, but it's not going to change things between you because he rejected me. That's the way it is. I wouldn't have admitted that much if you hadn't decided to be so bloody insightful."

"You will not even challenge me for him," Severus continued, and the stranger was still there. "Even though you believe I mistreat him."

"Are you always like this?" Potter asked crossly. "All this talk about _challenging _and _acquiring—_Draco's a human being, not a bloody dog. Of course I want to date him or sleep with him, but he's decided he doesn't want to date or sleep with me. He's the one who has to make that decision. If you still don't understand that, then yes, I'm going to fight to make sure he doesn't come back to you, because he'll only end up in the same situation he was in before."

The stranger seemed to have left. Severus cautiously opened his mouth and found no impulse to say odd things. He shook his head and murmured, "If I wanted someone as a lover, I would make my case. I would engage in determined pursuit. I cannot imagine backing off, throwing my hands in the air, and simply saying that it doesn't matter, that their older and abusive lover could have them because getting in a row was too much trouble."

"It's not your choice, it's his," said Potter, who by this point sounded as if he would like to beat both their heads against the wall. "When you understand that, then maybe we can have a real conversation." He started to stand.

Severus waited another moment, but no, there was no stranger in his body. The combination of unfamiliar emotions and the desire to take action could, perhaps, make him _feel _like a stranger, but he was still, always and purely, the one in control.

He rose to his feet and crossed the small space that separated him from Potter. Potter turned at once, wand in his hand, crouched as though he would transform into his Animagus shape and rise with wings fluttering.

Severus caught his hand and held it still so that he could both keep that deadly holly wand away from him and feel the pulse pounding through Potter's veins. He murmured, "And have you thought that it is my decision, as well, if I do not want to resume the exact relationship I had with Draco? If I want something else added to it, something new?' He paused, and, when Potter just looked at him with angry perplexity, clarified, "Some_one_ new?"

Potter's amazement was a fascinating thing to observe. It seemed to creep over his face as though someone was spraying it on with a Muggle device. He widened his eyes, blinked rapidly while Severus watched, and then stepped away as much as he could while Severus was still holding his wrist. Severus kept one eye on the wand. He would not be surprised if Potter lifted it and began casting random curses to get Severus to let go of him.

"What?" Potter whispered.

Severus rolled his eyes. Draco occasionally pulled this trick, pretending that he couldn't understand something Severus knew he had no trouble understanding. "You know what I mean," he said. "I have considered and reconsidered. You are right that Draco and I cannot simply return to the status quo. I would become emotionally unavailable once more. He would ponder and brood on what he can do to change things without gathering the courage to do so. This is the best solution that I have been able to find."

Potter swallowed. "You don't know that Draco wants me like that," he said. "In fact, I gave him a chance when he could have said that he did, and he rejected it."

"He is afraid at the moment," Severus said. "Can you blame him for reacting that way?"

Potter looked dazed. "I don't—I don't really understand," he said. "Why would you want me? Based on those memories alone?" He was starting to pull himself together now, Severus hoped, and they might have a coherent conversation sometime in the next hour.

"Those memories are more than I would get from any other," Severus said. "And you are here, and drawn to Draco." He tightened his hold subtly on Potter's wrist and waited to see if he noticed.

Apparently he hadn't, but that was probably because he looked as if he were on the verge of a brain hemorrhage. "That doesn't mean I want _you_."

Severus winced. But he had known that was coming, and still managed to nod with something like the majestic calm he wished to have. "I know that. But you might find it within your abilities to stay with me. And we could see what would happen between us." He debated wrapping one arm around Potter's shoulders and then decided that such a move was too bold for what he had in mind. "Draco would be more amenable to you if you stayed close," he added, playing what he thought was his strongest card.

Now he need only watch Potter's face to see his reaction.

* * *

_Snape has no idea what he's proposing, does he?_

Harry knew he should probably consider questions such as whether he found Snape attractive or whether Draco's reaction to him would really change with more time or only deepen into outright dislike and rejection. But every time he tried to fasten his thoughts on that, they scattered like a flock of startled birds and returned to the shock of Snape's proposing this in the first place.

_But he doesn't even like me._

That, of course, had not really mattered when he had volunteered to take Draco into his house, although he had not known at the time how much was liking for Draco and how much was pity.

Harry turned his head away and glanced once at Snape's hand on his wrist. He had the impression that he should protest, but he doubted that he would really know what to say. This was completely beyond anything he had thought would happen when he accompanied Draco to Snape's house. He had thought he would argue with Draco for a bit. Draco would pout and stick out his lip, Snape would make more promises, and then Harry would have to leave and go home without knowing how it would all work out. In the end, both Snape and Draco were adults, and he would have to trust them to solve their own problems.

But now he had the chance to stay here and see what happened. He could work as easily from here as from home, and as long as he went back to his house often enough to visit his friends, he doubted that it would inconvenience him.

_You'll have the chance to be closer to Draco._

Harry winced and hoped that he wasn't really as selfish as that thought made him sound. After all, he had to consider what Draco wanted, not what he did. "Think about this, Snape," he said, voice unsteady. "One set of three memories doesn't mean we'll get along."

"We have managed to so far in this conversation, have we not?" Snape asked softly. "Much more than I would have thought we could in Hogwarts."

"Fifteen or twenty minutes of interaction doesn't equal living together," Harry countered, and glanced out the window into the gardens, although he still couldn't see Draco anywhere. "And there's a third party to this."

"Draco, of course, shall have his say," Snape said, in the kind of dry tone that made Harry grin before he thought about what he was doing. "But I am asking _you_, at the moment, to approve this, for yourself. Can you do so? Or do you believe that you will need to walk away and leave us here alone?"

"Don't pout, it doesn't suit you," Harry muttered, and had the chance to watch Snape's face tighten in the old way.

"I was not—" Snape said, and then shook his head. "Know that I very strongly desire to have you here," he said. "You desire to stay with Draco, and I believe that Draco would welcome the opportunity to make up his mind while having _both _of us around. We have a pair of unused rooms that we could give over to you. You could see, if you stayed, whether I was misusing Draco and in what ways. You could make sure that I kept my promises."

Harry said the first words that went through his mind, because by this time he was too frightened by his own thoughts to keep silent and consider them carefully. "Having me as a live-in guest is different from having me as a lover."

"Is it?" Snape murmured. "When you are one of only two people in the wizarding world who know where I am, that I am still alive, and in what state I live? When you have displayed unwarranted compassion and patience towards both of us? When we have demonstrated that we two cannot stand on our own? A table with three legs is stronger than two."

Harry had a moment to wonder why Snape was comparing them to _tables_, of all things, and whether this was a sample of his romantic dialogue, before Snape dipped his head and fastened his lips on Harry's.

Harry would have expected—not that he had spent a lot of time imagining what it would be like to have _Snape _kiss him—that Snape's lips were dry and chapped, with an extra coating of slime to complete his resemblance to a snake. Only the dryness was true. Snape kissed like an expert, with enough force to make Harry think about what it would be like to have more, and with quick, darting flickers of his tongue that were never present enough to disgust Harry. He pulled back before Harry was ready.

And _that _realization made him have to lower his eyes to the floor and hope that he wasn't blushing as furiously as he thought he was.

"Well?" Snape's voice was soft and brimful of triumph, though, to his credit, Harry thought he was at least _trying _to keep that back. "What now? Would you like me to display more of my talents?" The hand he had on Harry's wrist switched to his shoulder, and the tips of sharp nails scraped, lightly, tantalizingly, along the skin of Harry's neck. "Or does this demonstration satisfy you?"

"It satisfies me," Harry said in a strangled voice, and only then thought to step away instead of leaning on Snape like an idiot. Snape lifted one eyebrow and waited. Harry found himself glancing out the window into the gardens again, but Draco still hadn't returned.

"Then," Snape said, and waited.

Harry took a deep breath. "I don't think we should make a decision without consulting Draco," he said. "He might be annoyed to come back and find this a _fait accompli_."

Snape murmured something that sounded like, "Where did you learn those words?" but he waved a hand negligently when Harry glared at him. "He will be annoyed no matter what we do," he said. "But there are three relationships here, not one. Between _us_, leaving Draco aside for the moment, what is your answer?"

Harry stared at Snape. He still didn't think the man's sallow skin and sunken cheeks were attractive, and his black eyes were fierce enough to make Harry flinch. "I must be mad," he said.

"You are agreeing, then," Snape said, in a voice full of dark glee.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I reckon I am."


	15. Teaching the Way

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fifteen—Teaching the Way_

Draco had thought that the rich colors of the flowers, the deep shade, and the soft paths of the garden might soothe him. This was the part of the physical house he had missed the most when he was living with Potter. Grimmauld Place had no garden to speak of, and Draco's time had been consumed with things rather more important than planting.

But it didn't matter how long he stood under a tree, barely breathing, rocking back and forth on his feet as he listened to the wind in the branches, or how long he stared into the heart of a flower and tried to see only the blue. Different thoughts pressed on his brain and pinched down like a wasp devouring a spider.

_How can they ask me to choose?_

The one thing Draco knew was that he could not have everything he needed or wanted. Time with Severus, someone to tell him what to do, and making love with Severus again were on one side. Spending time with Potter, trying to understand the confusing mixture of gratitude and irritation and attraction that brewed in his stomach like fireworks when he thought of Potter, and making decisions on his own without pressure from Severus were on the other side.

_I reckon it doesn't matter what I do, I'll have pressure no matter what, _Draco thought, and sat down on a stone bench to sulk.

When he didn't have an audience, though, there was only so much sulking he could do. The impulse ran out and left him memorizing the contours of a knot on the tree trunk in front of him, despair and rage alternating with dread of humiliation.

_Both of them will try to force me to make decisions. Can I go with the one that causes less pain?_

Then he shook his head. That was the way he had tried to live with Severus, snatching the crumbs of attention he absolutely needed and leaving him alone the rest of the time, because most of their encounters ended in pain. But he could live like that no longer, and it didn't matter who asked him to. He _had _to have some freedom, some room to breathe, and time.

Maybe, he slowly decided, the best way to do that was to go back and present that list of demands to Potter and Severus, then live with whoever could promise him the most of it. He wouldn't get his decisions made or escape any other way.

When he stepped back into the drawing room, he could immediately tell something was wrong. Severus and Potter still occupied their seats, and they still had tea in their cups. No one had touched the cup Draco had abandoned, in fact, though usually Severus was finicky about cleaning up dishes the moment someone stopped using them. But the air was full of a tense and secret excitement, and Potter and Severus avoided each other's eyes in a new way.

Draco stared. It almost seemed—it _almost _seemed—

_That was the way Severus and I looked at each other after the first time we kissed. Or the way Potter avoided my eyes after the kiss I gave him._

But it was ridiculous, Draco reassured himself as he made his way back to his seat. They were both here because they were both attracted to or bound to _him_. There was no other tie they had in common, and therefore no way that they could be sharing what he thought they had.

His spine still prickled as he settled into his seat, though, and he clutched the teacup harder than he should, nearly enough to put a crack down the side. He shoved it away after that and took a deep breath. "Have you considered your answers to my questions?" he asked.

"I thought you were the one who had to think," Potter said, with a piercing glance at him.

"Yes," Draco said, sitting up. He had forgotten how much glances like those irritated him. "I need freedom, room, and time. I don't need anyone shoving me to make decisions right away or controlling my every move. Severus, do you think you can give me that?" He turned around and tried his haughtiest stare. It was already different that Severus had left the teacup where it was and hadn't tried to force himself into the mini-conversation between Draco and Potter. Perhaps this could work.

Severus considered him somberly, the way he would an experimental potion that had collapsed for no known reason, and then folded one hand on his knee. "Potter and I have been considering a different solution," he said.

_Potter and I. _Draco had heard him use the phrase before, but never without a sneer. He sat up, shoulders all but vibrating with the tension. Something was very wrong here. Something had happened while he was gone. Had Potter and Severus _already _begun to plan something new behind his back, something that meant he wouldn't have the chance to do as he liked?

"What?" he snapped, and then drew his breath in and tried to look and act as calm as he could. He wasn't going to give Severus more room to cast accusations of being childish at him, and he wanted to show Potter that he could stand up to his lover and that a decision to come back home was not a mistake. "I mean, what have you been considering?" he asked, and he thought he was incredibly kind and tolerant in tone.

"Me staying here to help you and Snape," Potter said. "To mediate between you and make sure that you have what you need. And Snape—"

"Severus, I think you should call me," Severus interrupted.

Draco reeled back against the couch and stared at them both. This was so far outside his ordinary experience that his head ached, and he wasn't sure how he should go about clearing it or helping to decrease his confusion.

"Severus," Potter said with an agreeable tilt of his head, "kissed me."

Draco sat still, because there was no other response to that declaration that he could make. Then he said, not even recognizing his voice because it was so low and ugly, "You seem to attract that sort of thing, don't you?"

"Yes," Potter said. "At least this time I was able to give a better answer, now that I've admitted I might want to date a man."

Draco rose to his feet. He was dizzy with pain and panic, but determined not to show it. "I reckon I'd better leave, then," he said. "_If _you don't mind. I wish you every joy of each other, Severus. Potter." He made a little bow. His mother had once told him to be graceful no matter what he did, because Malfoys always were.

"Sit down before you fall down," Potter said. "You look as if you're going to faint any moment, you know. What Severus means is that we'd all try dating each other at once. You and him, assuming you want to. He and I. Me and you."

"One of my requirements will be that you learn better grammar, Potter," Severus murmured, compressing his lips with a dainty expression.

Draco shook his head, but he did sink back into the chair. "You're talking about a threesome," he said. "You could at least use the word."

"I didn't really know the word," Potter said, which made Draco rapidly reconsider how much sexual experience he really had. "But yes, I could. That's what we'll have if you'll agree. But it depends on your choice. I know that you wanted to come back to Sn—Severus, and you can do that if you wish. But there's no reason that you have to date me if you find me too controlling, or too demanding, or too—I don't know what other reason there would be, but I'm sure there is one."

Draco scowled. "You're making it sound as if it was solely my choice not to date you," he muttered. "There are other reasons, and you know what they are."

Potter shook his head. "Not all of them. What I'm trying to say is that we don't want to force you into a decision, but if you'll agree to live in the house with both of us, at least that way we would be in the same place with you."

Draco scowled at him again, and then scowled at Severus. "What were you _thinking_?" he demanded. He reckoned he could understand if Potter had kissed Severus first, at least if he posited some unnatural and subdued attraction, but there was no reason under the sun that Severus ought to have kissed Potter. The man Draco had known, or thought he knew, was too logical, careful, and controlled to have done so. "What did you really want from him? Did you think he'd agree to this?"

Severus's eyes were carefully blank. "I had no idea what would happen," he said. "But your leaving made me see that I cannot stay the same. I wanted to take a risk. If it failed, I would be no worse off than before, and if it succeeded, it would change my life. Then I _must _be different. It would reduce the chance that I would merely sink back into mindless routine if you chose to join me again."

Draco sighed. Severus's logic did have a sort of twisted sense, though his usual method was to leave his bridges in place rather than light fires under them. "Why did you choose such a Gryffindor way of doing that, though?"

"Was that a Gryffindor way?" Severus studied him with a keen gaze. "I thought of it simply as a way that would work. I prefer not to give the names of Hogwarts Houses to courses of action. A Gryffindor as well as a Slytherin can be cunning, and a Slytherin as well as a Gryffindor can be brave."

_Great, now he manages to make me sound like the unreasonable one._

Draco turned back to Potter. "You must see that this can't work," he said, a little desperately. He had felt so panicked and driven two hours ago that he had been sure he would walk back into the house and Potter and Severus would both shake their heads at him simultaneously. He had never imagined that _he _would seem like the only sane one in a world of madmen. "You can't stay here with us."

"If you say no, I can't," Potter said. "But Sn—Severus has invited me."

Draco stared. He tried to imagine how well Potter and Severus would get along, and couldn't. He tried to imagine this arrangement lasting more than three days without self-destructing, and couldn't. He tried to imagine making love to both Potter and Severus at once.

That was disturbingly easy to see in his mind's eye.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

"Well, that's no different from what you felt a while ago, is it?" Potter asked encouragingly. "You need to make one decision at a time. Do you want me to live here or not? That's the first one."

Draco closed his eyes. He couldn't imagine it, perhaps, but then again, he hadn't been able to imagine that his life with Severus would end like it had, either. Perhaps the best solution would be simply to step off the cliff and live through what would come rather than trying to anticipate it.

"I want you to live here," he said mechanically. "Or, at least, I don't want to oppose Severus's invitation."

He heard Potter stand up, but he refused to open his eyes. He would be profoundly embarrassed by what he would see in Potter's face, he thought, and Potter should feel the same way.

"Thank you," Potter murmured, close to his ear. "I know that this was hard for you to allow, and we pressed you further than you wanted to be pressed, but you made the decision anyway, and that's the important thing."

His hand fluttered across Draco's jaw, and his lips touched the skin behind Draco's ear for a brief second. Draco could feel his jaw dropping in astonishment. He hadn't given permission for Potter to do that! He hadn't thought Potter, compassionate and considerate as he was, would ever dare snatch a kiss without permission.

But he had, and now he was turning to Severus and saying, "Where are those rooms that you said I could have? I'll need to go back to my house to fetch some things, of course, but I'll be taking them."

Severus rustled towards the right corridor and explained something to Potter, but Draco didn't hear it. His heartbeat had taken over instead. He licked his lips, stood still, and waited until he was virtually sure that Potter had left the room, either to find the rooms that Severus had given him—without Draco's permission—or to find the Apparition point.

Then he turned around and opened his eyes. "Why did you do that?" he asked Severus. "The truth."

* * *

Severus suffered a mild spasm of irritation. The problem with sudden honesty was that no one seemed to believe him, and he had to keep explaining his choice to change as well as the facts he was trying to convey.

But he had made this choice himself, since he could have been honest before, or simply treated Draco like a human being from the beginning and avoided all this trouble.

_Or perhaps I could not have. _It was not easy, even now, to admit he had done something wrong, and he could do it now only because other people were with him who could correct him in moments if he didn't. If he had only blank parchment in front of him and another letter to write, he would have edited in his mind and probably never thought that "treating Draco like a human being" was the solution.

"I meant what I said," he murmured now. "I wish to have Potter around because it is different. And the memories that he placed in your Pensieve convinced me. He thought kindly of me long before he had any reason to do so. I could use someone who thinks kindly of me."

Draco's face turned white, except for a single spot of color in each cheek. Severus stared, and then realized the implications of his words. He shook his head. "I am sure that you think more kindly of me than I deserve," he said, "but you also have reasons to that Potter does not. His sympathy was unusual, and so it caught my attention."

"That has nothing to do with thinking him attractive." Draco's voice was low and savage.

"Does it not?" Severus asked. "Did my knowledge of potions make matters any different for you? My voice? You told me once that my voice was what drew you to me when you became an adult and thus old enough to understand your own feelings."

Draco's cheeks went from white to red. He turned his head. "But you were never attracted to Potter in the same way." he muttered.

"Not the _same _way," Severus said. "This is new for me, and may not work. But I wished to try. I want Potter's sympathy and understanding for myself, and his body would not be a bad trade. And I want you."

"Why?" Draco turned his back to him. "If you have Potter, and you just admitted that you fully intend to fuck him, then why would you need me?"

_Ah. He wants praise. _Severus was glad that the problem was so easy to diagnose, since he was familiar with the impulse.

He rose to his feet and walked up behind Draco, bowing his head so that he could breathe gently out on his ear. Draco twitched and hunched his shoulders, but relaxed them in the next instant, as though long-ingrained instinct was taking over from his conscious repulsion. Severus smiled. Yes, he could still use his breath alone to seduce Draco. He wondered what it would take to seduce Potter, and then put the notion out of his mind for now. He should be concentrating on Draco alone.

"Because you offer me things that he cannot," Severus said softly. "Greater knowledge. Greater familiarity with the life I have led. Greater understanding that comes from having experienced the same things yourself, rather than pure compassion. And a different kind of beauty and sexual knowledge." He rested his fingertips on Draco's shoulder. "Remember what and who I am. Is it strange for me to want everything I can possess?"

Draco tilted his head back, his hair brushing past his ears and falling to rest on Severus's fingertips in the old familiar way. Severus shivered, and then restrained himself by thinking that he was not the only one who knew how to use his body as a tool in seduction.

"I didn't think about it that way." Draco turned his head to the side, his eyes liquid. "But—you realize that Potter has never been with a man before? He just admitted to himself that he was attracted to men. And he was attracted to _me_. How can you be sure that he'll want to sleep with you when he might not even find you handsome?"

Severus was startled into a crack of laughter. "Draco. I know I am not _handsome. _It is not facial beauty, nor bodily beauty, that earns me lovers. Unless you lie awake at night dreaming of the way that my skin tightens around my shoulders and the way that my knees pop when I rise from the bed."

Draco's face flamed, and Severus paused, curious as to whether he had stumbled over a few of Draco's secret fantasies. But Draco simply cleared his throat and said, "What if Potter doesn't fantasize at all?"

"Then this won't work," Severus said. "But we do not know that yet."

Draco shook his head, opened his mouth, and then shut it again, twin lines appearing next to his mouth that said he would never admit what he was thinking. But Severus kept his fingertips in place and raised his eyebrows, and finally Draco bit his lip and admitted, "I don't know how you do it. You know that you could have made the wrong decision. Yet you persist. How can you _do _that? Why aren't you afraid of failing and what other people will think of you for it?"

Severus shook his head. "One cannot preserve an attitude like this when testing experimental potions, Draco. If I were afraid of failure, then I would never brew. In ordinary potions, I can make mistakes when distracted," he added, thinking of the Calming Draught that he had ruined with brooding over Draco. "Now, granted, I make most of the failures by myself, in my lab, with no one to report them. If I am mistaken in the way that Potter might come to belong with us, then at least two other people will know." He met Draco's gaze. "Potter's Unbreakable Vow will prevent him from talking about it, but you could."

Draco's eyes flared. Then he shut them and turned his head away, but Severus could predict the route his mind was running. He hadn't thought of that particular power, and it had given him another weapon in his arsenal, when for so long he had been helpless against Severus, or at least felt that way.

Severus was glad that Draco wasn't looking at him, because he was not sure what his own face would have expressed. He had emerged from six years of mindless routine, just like Draco, but he was less sure about what would follow. He was making wild decisions, making changes that might not work after a few minutes' thinking, instead of after long and cautious experimentation and research. He was throwing everything he held at the wall and hoping for a miraculous potion by sheer chance.

He did not know if it would work. But he was committed to trying.

* * *

Harry glanced around the rooms that Snape had directed him to, and felt his lips twitch. The walls were so dark that it looked as though someone had cast a Permanent Night Charm and then remembered to score it with lines indicating the divisions between the wooden panels. The floor was covered with scrap paper; Harry decided that Draco might have used this as a study once. The furniture consisted of a bed with sheets so musty that Harry had started sneezing when he stepped through the door, a wooden desk with a large crack down the middle of it, and a chair with one leg.

He Vanished the sheets, considered the chair and decided to give it up as a bad job, and tried a few spells on the crack in the desk. Nothing happened. Harry cocked an eyebrow and decided that might as well go, too.

_What am I doing here?_

Ron and Hermione would probably yell that question at him. Wait, no, only Ron would. Hermione would pick up half-a-dozen psychology books and by the end of the evening, she would be master of all the disorders that might make someone move in with people he didn't know and try to live with them.

_She doesn't know about Snape, or I might ask her for advice._

Harry sat down on the bed, with a mental reminder to himself to check his arse for dust later, and tilted his head back to study the ceiling. Cracking and leaking. At least this crack responded to the _Reparo_ he launched at it.

_I don't really know why I'm here. I don't know what I feel for Snape or Draco, other than the fact that I can't stop thinking about Draco._

And now he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about Snape—or Severus, as Harry reckoned he really should call him, based on the other man's permission. He touched his lips and thought he still felt the pressure of that tongue on them, though Severus had barely touched him.

_I hope that Draco decides to let us live together. I want to explore this and see what happens, although it might not be anything good._

He started to brood, and then heard footsteps in the corridor outside his room. Harry stood up and put his head around the door.

Draco stood there. He shone against the dark walls in this part of the house like a beacon in the night, Harry thought, and then shook his head to clear it. He had _strange _thoughts sometimes. He would have to struggle with them until he corrected them.

"Is something wrong?" Draco's voice was wary and snappish. Harry knew why. All he had seen was Harry shaking his head. He didn't know what the gesture was for. Perhaps it was meant to send him away.

"Nothing. Are you all right?" Harry added, because he thought that would deter Draco from asking a question that he had no idea how to answer.

Draco let himself be diverted, though the way he narrowed his eyes and peered at Harry for a moment said he wouldn't be forgetting this. "Yes, fine. And I've decided that I want to stay here with both you and Severus and see what happens." Harry found his lips moving in an echo of the words, so close were they to his own thoughts. "Probably nothing good," Draco finished, with a wise shake of his head.

"Thank you," Harry said. "And yes, it might be nothing good, but this seems to be something we can do to address all our needs and desires and wants all at once, or at least give them a chance to emerge. Thank you," he added a second time, because Draco didn't seem to have absorbed the words the first time.

"You're welcome." Draco still seemed half-puzzled.

Harry leaned forwards and kissed him on the cheek, since he was the only one who hadn't initiated a kiss yet. Draco turned his head and opened his mouth, and Harry's lips ended up half-brushing his. Draco gasped, but said nothing, and stared at Harry when he smiled back and said, "I'm going home to find some furniture."

Draco was still standing there, motionless, when Harry stepped past him and went down the stairs.


	16. Upending

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Sixteen—Upending_

"I'm sorry, mate. I just don't understand."

"That makes two of us," Harry muttered as he shrank his trunk and looked around the room for anything else that he might need. He couldn't see it, though. He had already removed most of his clothes, his broom, those few books he regularly read, his wizarding chess set, and the research books that he was using as he began to prepare for new jobs. What else was left? The dusty sheets on the bed, the bed itself, some clothes that were too torn or ripped to justify taking along—Dudley's old hand-me-downs, for the most part—and the fixtures that were part of the house itself.

Well, and the stool where Ron sat with his hand on his forehead.

"Have you _considered _this at all?" he told the floor, or maybe Harry's feet. With his hand positioned like that, it was difficult for Harry to see where he was staring. "Please tell me that you've considered it."

"Of course," Harry said. He gave Ron a grin. He knew that his friend was worried about him, but he thought it would help if Ron could see that _Harry _wasn't worried. "I'm not upending my whole life, even if it looks like it. I'm just moving to another place for a while. I regularly spend weeks on the road anyway, you know that."

Ron rose rapidly to his feet, his cheeks flushing the ugly red that meant he was really angry. Harry blinked and stared at him. "What's the matter?"

"You really care about Malfoy, at least," Ron said. "Don't try to pretend you don't. Don't act as though this doesn't matter. Of _course _it does. And that means that I have to care about this, too. It's going to hurt you if this doesn't work out, and it'll hurt if he rejects you."

Harry squeezed Ron's shoulder. That was the one downside of having such caring friends, he thought. Sometimes they believed that you weren't as emotionally strong as you knew you really were.

The other downside, of course, was that he couldn't mention Snape at all thanks to the stupid Unbreakable Vow. He wanted to be honest with Ron and Hermione, but the need to keep Snape quiet and placated—and protected—worked against that for right now.

"I promise that I'll tell you if something isn't working out," he said quietly. "But I expect everything to do so. And if he hurt me—it would _hurt_. It wouldn't kill me. I know this is a risk. I haven't even been with a man before, let alone one who used to be my enemy. Do I know it'll work out? I don't. But that's no reason to avoid the risk."

Ron took a deep breath, and the red flush faded from his face. Harry was glad. He really didn't want to kill his best friend with an apoplectic attack.

"If you're sure, then of course I'll support you," Ron said. His face set like iron suddenly. "And of course I'll come around and beat up Malfoy if he doesn't accept you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "That's the point," he said. "I hope that it will work out with him. But if it doesn't, then I don't want to blame him, and I don't want you beating him up or Hermione lecturing him."

"You can't think that it would be just _your _fault if it fails," Ron said, and stared at him with piercing eyes. "Not even _you_ are that much of a saint."

Harry coughed, feeling his skin heat up with a vivid blush of his own. Apparently Draco wasn't the only one who found his greater attempts to practice patience and understanding in the last few years annoying. "No, not really. But—I'd like to come back here and be with you and Hermione if it doesn't work, all right? Nurse my wounds. Not be reminded of them because I was still paying attention to Draco." He felt another twinge of conscience about leaving Snape out, but the Vow tightened around his throat like a noose at the thought of speaking his name, last _or _first.

Ron smiled at once, and reached out to hug him. "Of course, mate. I should have thought of that."

Harry shook his head. "You and Hermione have both been wonderful about this, you know," he muttered as his hands tightened on Ron's shoulders. "I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd blasted Draco the minute I came back with him."

"He's obviously all right," Ron said, though he gave Harry a dubious look as he stepped back, as if to say that he doubted Draco's claims to higher praise than that. "Just—be careful, will you? And if Hermione is going to free Malfoy's mum, then you might need to come back and talk to her anyway."

Harry nodded. He wondered what would happen if they needed to do that, whether Snape would feel left out or something even more pernicious. But he couldn't do anything about that at the moment, and if the issue came up, then Snape would have to be the one who made the choice.

"What are you going to do about Kreacher?" Ron asked, clearing his throat. He often did that after he'd hugged Harry, as if he thought that the air needed to be reassured he was still a manly man.

"He's stayed here and taken care of the house when I was absent for weeks or months before," Harry said. "He'll do the same thing this time. If I ask him, then he's as happy to do that as he is to cook meals every day."

Ron nodded. His eyes were still uncomfortable, and Harry had the feeling that he knew something more was happening than Harry was saying. But what exactly could Harry do about it? The Vow constrained him, along with other things.

"Good luck, mate," Ron murmured.

"Yeah, I think I'll need it," Harry said, and picked up the trunk and satchels that he was taking with him.

* * *

It was strange to be eating a meal with Severus again. And when Potter shuffled down from his room, yawning, and joined them—generally half an hour after Draco had already awakened and set the table for breakfast—it became even stranger.

The conversation alternated between intense bursts of talk about potions, politics, the missions that Potter had performed in the guise of a parrot, and food, and equally intense bursts of silence. Draco would find himself watching Severus and trying to determine what he thought of Potter. Then he would turn around and watch Potter. Potter would usually be looking at one of them, but Draco found it harder to read his face.

Or, rather, he knew what was there: confusion. Intrigue. Sometimes desire, though that showed up more often when he looked at Draco than when he looked at Severus. But he didn't know what to do about it.

_And the end result of Potter coming to live with us is that we're all confused together, _Draco thought crossly after one such breakfast. Severus had vanished into his lab, as he still did during the early parts of the mornings, and Potter had changed into his Animagus form to go flying. He said that he forgot how to use his wings if he didn't get regular practice, which Draco thought was bollocks. At least it gave him an escape from the fraught atmosphere in the cottage, though.

Draco was strolling in the gardens, which had become his refuge. He sat down beneath a tree as he thought about it now and studied the leaves, automatically beginning a lesson in his mind. What kind of leaves were they? Oak. What potions were they good for? Some healing potions, some love potions, a few potions that were meant as soothing, if not healing, pastes for boils and burns and the like…

He blinked. He wouldn't have had those thoughts a few weeks ago. At least he could honestly say now that he was absorbing the lessons that Severus offered him on potions, and thinking more often about them.

He was probably making a decision, in the way that Potter still sometimes talked about. Whatever his career was, it would be in Potions.

A choking feeling of panic seized Draco's throat, and he bolted to his feet, then took off running down the garden's nearest path, though he wasn't sure what he was trying to outrun. Branches ripped and swayed past him, leaves danced in front of his eyes, and flowers banged against his legs. Draco didn't slow until he reached the fountain and sundial that stood in the central part of the garden, where several climbing plants that needed lots of water grew.

There he sat down, shut his eyes, and leaned his forehead against his hands. He was breathing as though he'd run much farther and faster than in fact he had.

Potter would probably look at him with pity in his eyes, Severus contempt. Both of them would say that he was being stupid. They would say that he _had _to make decisions, that even just learning potions from Severus and thinking about them when he walked in the gardens was a decision of a sort.

Draco shook his head. Freedom had become a cage, he thought. He had assumed, once he was away from Severus, that he could relax and _be_. He had pictured, once he actually knew that Potter's house had a large library, being able to read whatever he wanted and get the education that he thought his last few years at Hogwarts had denied him.

But he was swept into this instead, where the future pressed on him as heavily as Severus's tendency to ignore him had in the past. There was no way to put off making the decisions, and no way to make them without tumbling into a mistake.

Potter had wondered who he was worried about disappointing, and didn't seem to consider that it could be _them_, Potter and Severus, who were willing to upend their comfortable lives for the sake of living with him. They never thought about whether he wanted that sacrifice. They never thought about how it would be for him if they looked at him with pity in their eyes.

He needed help, not the kind of pressure that they would reward him with.

He buried his head in his arms and sat like that for a long time, taking slow breaths. He looked up only when he heard a branch creak above him, and not in the slight way that it did when a squirrel was skipping away or a bird alighting.

Potter sat there in parrot form, head cocked, looking at him. Draco stared back, his mouth dry, wondering if he'd spoken aloud the thoughts he was having. Did that mean that Potter had heard him and was looking for some way to hurt him or humiliate him for his worries?

But Potter simply fluttered to a lower bough once he was sure that he had Draco's attention, and then onto the sundial. He cocked his head and uttered a low cooing noise Draco hadn't known parrots were capable of. Finally, he landed on Draco's shoulder and began to draw individual strands of hair gently through his beak.

"Don't," Draco whispered, tensing.

The parrot went on grooming him, and gradually Draco began to relax. He kept a wary eye on Potter as he did, but Potter showed no sign that he would bite Draco. He obviously intended the caresses to Draco's hair to be soothing, and it was a bit irritating to be patronized like that, but Draco would take it at the moment over another conversation about decision-making.

"I don't understand you, you know," he told Potter.

Potter chirped an inquiry and then stood on one leg to vigorously scratch himself. Small feathers flew off and buried themselves in the ground at Draco's feet. He smiled in spite of his belief that Potter was deliberately doing things like this to get him to relax.

_I wonder why I resent it when I think Potter is manipulating me, but Severus can do it and I don't mind? Maybe because I still think that it's unnatural for Gryffindors to have skills like that._

"No, I don't," he continued. It was so much easier to talk to Potter like this, when he was an animal. Perhaps that was the reason Potter had come to him in this form. But Draco wasn't going to think about that right now, about hidden motives and reasons. "You want me to be free, but you keep putting as much pressure on me as Severus ever did."

Potter jerked a little, and a small flash of pain ran through Draco's scalp where he'd tugged on the hair. But he kept on grooming, and Draco had the courage to take a breath and then go on speaking.

"You want me to make choices. What choices? What are the right ones? You seem to think it's wrong for me to pause and consider them, or else you want me to think of the pauses as just more choices. That would be like me moving you from a small cage into a larger one and then telling you that the bigger one isn't really a cage because it has more space between the bars."

Potter made a small sound, but didn't move around to look at him. Draco stared at the fountain, which splashed water into the stone bowl from the mouths of two rearing swans, and continued.

"You're beyond my kind of help. You're patient and kind and considerate and mature, and it seems that you can admit to yourself that you're attracted to men even though it was something you were resisting. I don't have that kind of maturity. I need more help. But I feel as though you're pushing me and pushing me to be more like you without thinking about the years that it took you to get that way."

Potter rubbed his beak against Draco's face. Then he moved around in front of him and stared at him with sober eyes. Even that, Draco thought, was easier to look at in a parrot's face than it would have been in Potter's own.

"I'm sorry," Potter said. "You're right. I didn't think at all about the fights I had with my friends, or that I would have gone on struggling against you if I didn't already have my suspicions that I was attracted to you, because my reactions were so strange. And now I'm part of this grand experiment where we see if we can live together, and if it fails, it won't hurt me as much as it would hurt you." He hesitated, then added, "I _do _think that you're as intelligent as I am. But that's not really the same thing."

Draco shook his head fiercely. "No, it's not. I know that I'm not as intelligent as Severus, but he could still act better than he has towards me. But it's something different that I have and he doesn't, or that I need to have and both you and he think I need to have more of. Decision-making ability, maybe. Confidence."

"Yes, confidence," Potter said, as if he was relieved that Draco had been the one to find the word. Draco frowned a bit. _Maybe he really doesn't want to do all the work for me. _"Confidence in yourself. You don't have much."

Draco snorted bitterly and looked down, nudging a few fallen leaves with his shoe. "Would you, in the circumstances?"

"No," Potter said. "Probably not. But I want to know what I can do to help you. Lack of confidence is a problem that I had friends to help me deal with, so I'm not sure what to say when it's someone else."

Draco took a deep breath. This was what he had wanted, wasn't it? A chance to talk to a Potter and Severus who seemed willing to _listen _to him, instead of just turn their backs and go back to the ideal Draco in their minds, who never messed up?

So he should take advantage of it, and say what he meant instead of retreating behind a wall of excuses, the way he could feel the temptation rising in himself to do.

"I want you to stop talking about this. Talk about something else. Talk about the jobs that you're going to take, or how hard it is to live with me and Severus, or what makes you like me. But not about decisions and pressures and the way that I'll _have _to do certain things to get along in the world. That's too hard right now."

* * *

Harry scratched his head again. He could see why Draco would say that, and at the same time, he felt the urge to object. _Everything _was a matter of decisions. And how long would this be "too hard" for Draco? Since he had fallen into a routine of six years with Snape when he didn't seem to object or do anything for himself, Harry could see him doing the same thing again and still promising himself, when he was thirty, that he would get going and make a difference any day now.

But that was only what he _feared _would happen, not what would. As he'd said to Ron, he couldn't hesitate based on fears. He genuinely didn't know what would happen if he moved in with Draco and Snape, and he genuinely didn't know what would happen if Draco waited a while to make his choices.

_Because I'm not Draco._

There was that, and Harry sat still for a moment until he thought he could accept it. Sometimes his impulse to help _did _carry him too far. He couldn't go back and change the past and make it easier for Draco; he didn't even know that he could make the future any easier, since Draco was requesting that he help less. But he would try to go ahead, apologize, and then leave matters up to Draco.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realize what effect this was having on you. I'll back off and talk about other things for a while."

Draco watched him with narrowed eyes. Harry didn't know why until he murmured, "And you'll keep that promise, will you?" in tones of heavy irony.

"I'll try," Harry said. "Feel free to flick me on the head with a forefinger if I forget."

For the first time that afternoon, something he said pulled a smile from Draco, even if it was a reluctant one. "I think I'll need to do that fairly often," he muttered.

"Yes, I'm sure you will at first," Harry said simply, meeting his eyes and hoping that his own looked sincere. It was so hard, sometimes, to judge the expressions that he wore as a bird, especially since he had to perfect looking stupid when he was on a job where people expected to see only an ordinary parrot. "But I'll try."

Draco scowled and kicked at the ground again. Harry hopped so that he could keep his perch when Draco's shoulder trembled and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"I'll never be as _good _as you are," Draco muttered. "It seems to be so easy for you to change your mind and apologize. It's not easy for me."

Harry laughed a bit, and that made Draco jump, too. Harry thought he probably didn't expect to hear a sound like that emerging from Harry's beak. "You only see what actually comes out of my mouth," Harry said. "I still struggle with myself pretty hard sometimes, the way I did when I thought I might be attracted to you but I didn't want to face it. The difference is that I don't say those things aloud, so you might get a false impression of how I actually feel."

Draco shook his head. "And if I'm never as patient as you are?"

"I don't expect you to be," Harry said quietly. "I know I've tried your patience already, but that was because of my worry. It's not because I expected you to be like me."

Draco still raised a skeptical eyebrow, but seemed willing to accept that for the present, which meant they could talk about other things, and Harry could actually have a pleasant conversation about how and why the gardens had been planted before Draco went back to the house and he flew to another tree to change shape. He only did it in front of someone when he had absolutely no choice, as when he'd taken the potion in Snape's lab.

When he changed back, he leaned against the tree for a moment and waited for things to stop spinning. Then he stood up and shook his head. He could see the house from here, but only the top of one stone wall, where it joined the roof. A window stared across the gardens, but he couldn't see anyone through it.

It didn't matter. He knew the house well enough by now to know that he was looking at the window of Snape's lab.

Snape…was a different kind of problem altogether.

* * *

Severus treasured the hours he spent with Draco in his lab. He had forgotten how much pleasure he got out of teaching when he had a _competent _student. And Draco had not forgotten how to ask questions and make cautious experiments of his own, while checking with Severus before dropping any volatile combination into the close confines of a vial, which made his pleasure all the greater. Words flowed and danced between them, and if their fingers accidentally brushed each other's when they reached for the same ingredient, it was, at the most, the occasion for a few seconds of charged silence.

Potter—Harry—was different.

He seemed to regard potions with a deference that meant he would not intrude into the lab. Even when Draco deputed him to carry a message to Severus, he simply stood beyond the door and asked the question or offered the words he'd memorized, and kept his eyes and hands and limbs out of the sacred space where Severus brewed. At times he blinked and stared when Severus came in with a handful of dried flowers or owl feathers, but he never seemed to ask the questions that Severus knew were racing through his head.

At first Severus had appreciated that attitude, since it meant Harry would not interfere with his instruments. Now it irritated him. Harry was content to retreat behind walls of ignorance, it seemed, and resist attempts to breach them.

Now he had come to the lab again, this time to ask Severus if he minded spaghetti for dinner, and seemed intent on leaving again the moment he received Severus's affirmation. Severus called sharply, "Harry! Come here."

There was a long pause, and then Harry's head appeared around the corner. His eyes flickered across the room and then quickly to Severus's face, as if vials might shatter spontaneously if he looked at them. "Sir?"

"I am not your professor," Severus said. "I am your host, and perhaps your lover. Come here. You will not break anything if you assist me, I assure you."

Harry frowned, stepping into the lab. "I assumed you wouldn't want me assisting you," he muttered. "Since I'm not good at potions, what place do I have in a potions lab?"

Severus rested his hands on the nearest table and stared patiently at Harry. After a moment, his face flushed, and he cleared his throat. "Well, yes, and I was keeping out of it," he said. "But the objection still stands. I'm no good at potions. Do we have to meet in here? We could just sit in the drawing room and talk about something, or have tea together, if you wanted to get to know me."

"I wish to get to know you in _here_," Severus said with quiet force. "This lab is also part of your home. You should be comfortable in every room of the house. Why would you walk through every other one, even our bedrooms, and look at things with curiosity, but leave this one alone?"

Harry shrugged with one shoulder. He looked closer to the boy that Severus remembered, at least right now, than he had in the week since he'd moved in. "Because I thought that you wanted it kept private," he said. "And because _I'm _not comfortable here. And because—because I wanted to avoid you."

Severus gave him a tight smile. "I'm still the undesirable part of the bargain that you made to live here with Draco, aren't I? I notice that you speak to me fluently about him—as you did the other day when you advised me not to pressure him into any decisions or talk of choices—but you are quiet on everything else."

Harry flushed, but met his eyes. "I don't know what to say," he said bluntly. "I don't understand you. I don't know what will offend you. I understand Draco better because I've lived with him for longer. But I still don't understand why you _kissed _me in the first place, never mind anything else. What do we have to talk about? I don't know."

_Ah, well. _Severus inclined his head. "Perhaps a few brewing sessions will bring you into closer communion with me," he said. "That is the way that I became closer to Draco when we first arrived here. Now, if you take up that handful of leaves that is lying next to the lens over there…"

Dubiously, Harry did as he asked.

He never did relax completely, but he was better at following instructions than he had been, and by the end of an hour, he had ceased to jump when Severus touched his shoulder to get his attention or briefly took his hand to show him how to stir a cauldron. He left smiling and with a few murmurs about returning the next day.

Severus basked in his self-approbation for the rest of the day, conscious that he had been the _first _to try and make sure that the bonds between them were strong.


	17. Three Legs of a Table

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_Chapter Seventeen—Like Three Legs of a Table_

Severus and Potter—Draco rolled the name _Harry _around in his mind occasionally, but didn't yet have the courage to speak it aloud—weren't perfect.

He got ample proof of that in the next few days. Potter started to make some significant remark about the future several times, with his eye on Draco, and had to choke it back each time. He looked sorry when he did it, of course, but that wasn't the point. Draco had said that he didn't want to be pressured, and Potter had done it anyway. Draco satisfied himself, each time, by turning away with immense dignity and occasionally getting up to leave the table.

Once, Potter followed him into the drawing room. Draco turned around to face him, and he knew that his expression was wild and his eyes too bright, but he couldn't help it.

"You said that you wouldn't press me," he hissed. "You said that you would hold back and let me do what I wanted _when _I wanted to."

And Potter had winced, and nodded, and murmured that he was sorry, and then gone out of the room—either back into the kitchen if he wasn't finished eating, or up to his bed or out into the gardens. Once or twice that week he accompanied Severus into the lab, an activity that Draco watched suspiciously, but could think of no reason for interfering with.

Sometimes he thought they were leaving him out. And even Severus, who understood him better, sometimes looked at him as if he thought that Draco had no right to object to that. _He _was the one who heard Draco's breath catch when he and Potter did anything together.

But that was only sometimes. The rest of the time, Draco was grateful to escape into the gardens and stand there breathing, knowing that one of them wouldn't summon him in the next minute and a half. And then he would go back in and pick up the books that Harry had brought with him from Grimmauld Place. Sometimes they were books on law; other times he studied curses or potions. There was no pattern to his studies yet, and Draco didn't think there needed to be. He had to push ahead, that was all, and experiment, and find out what he liked.

He had to learn how to be himself again.

Severus was more help in that than Draco had expected he would be, even if he wasn't perfect. He came out and sat in the drawing room while Draco read, most of the time. He always had a thick book with him, and paid strict attention to that, so Draco couldn't accuse him of intruding. But if Draco did look up with the frown that meant he needed help understanding a text, rather than the frown that meant he needed to think through it on his own, Severus was always available.

"That has to do with the first goblin rebellion," he said one night, running his finger along a thick paragraph that Draco had somehow skipped the middle of, and then everything was all right again.

Or "Perhaps you meant to consider this set of ingredients and not the set that you were telling me about?" Severus identified a list on the next page, and Draco nodded and kept on with his reading, while Severus subsided into his.

It was like having a second chance to live, again, those first dizzy months when he had been a boy and he and Severus had come here. Severus had been careful around him then, too, Draco remembered. It was strange, but he had forgotten. He remembered Severus being passionate and sympathetic the way he hadn't been later, but _he _was the one who had got impatient with the slow sexual dance they were performing around each other and accelerated it. When he was interested in a person, Severus would move slowly.

_Perhaps he's afraid of frightening them away, _Draco thought, staring at the back of his lover's head as Severus bent over a thick-written page in front of him. It wasn't something he'd ever considered before.

He and Severus worked in the lab, too, and if Draco had been worried that Severus was seeking to replace him with Potter, he worried less after that. Severus spoke the directions or gave him warnings with precise clarity, and Draco whirled through the steps of the brewing as if through a dance. When he finished and sagged suddenly to a stop against the table, he was breathing fast and found himself touching his forehead as if he expected to find sweat there.

"You did well."

Draco looked up and found Severus looming close to him, closer than Draco thought he had come in the fortnight they'd been living together. He started to straighten, not liking the idea of looking weak in front of Severus, but Severus bent close to him and kissed him.

Draco opened his mouth without thought. This had once been so familiar, and not in the dry and dusty way that it had become in the later years. This was _known_. He let his tongue stroke the roof of Severus's mouth and then leaned close enough that Severus could touch his face if he wanted to.

Severus chose not to. Instead, he stepped away a moment later, and the sheer _intensity _of his eyes made Draco swallow.

"I will not push you into anything that you might regret," Severus murmured. "If you wish to join me for the brewing session that I will conduct tomorrow, for the sake of the experience, then you may."

Draco couldn't do anything but nod. Severus turned and swept out of the lab and left Draco standing alone in a place that seemed much less enchanted when he was no longer there. Draco picked up a vial and held it to the light, watching the sun shake and shine from it.

He could wish that he got along with Potter one half as well as he was beginning to with Severus.

* * *

Harry soared in circles near the top of the wards, feeling the sun on his wings and sighing in gratitude when he finally landed on a thick branch halfway down one of the gardens' oaks. When he put his head under his wing, the warmth still lingered, and he made a soft clucking noise of contentment.

He needed to transform into a bird and escape sometimes, although when he came back in from a venture outside, both Draco and Severus looked at him oddly, as though they had assumed he would take the chance to leave. Harry had thought about it, but the tugging of the bonds tied to his heart and soul had brought him back each time.

_And they'll bring me back again, _Harry thought, as he lifted his head, spent a few moments preening the feathers on the edges of his wings, and then flew for the ground.

He still didn't know, no matter how many days passed, if this would work out. Sometimes there seemed to be a thick understanding between Draco and Snape that he would never share. He had walked into the drawing room the other day and seen their heads bent together over one book, and had stopped. Neither of them had looked up or appeared to notice him, though Harry thought Snape might have known he was there anyway, and Harry had retreated silently.

He wanted to leave them alone so that they could have the time together they needed. He didn't think their relationship would recover until they had it.

At the same time…

_I want something for myself, too._

He watched Draco with an ache in the back of his throat, as if he was getting a cold. Draco would laugh and say something to Snape, and Snape's face would adopt an odd glow, like a banked fire. He must have learned when he was young not to show too much emotion over anything, Harry thought, or someone would snap at him. And he would respond, and Draco's voice would rise in communion, and it was as if they walked through a world of their own, shutting him out.

Which was ridiculous.

_You have to enter that world if you want them to pay attention to you, or value you._

But he couldn't be as good at potions as Draco was. Harry already knew that he would have to prove his value to Snape in a different way, and he would have to prove to Draco that he was valuable at _all_.

He landed and concentrated on the necessary magic that would turn him back into a human. His body blurred, rippled, and shook like someone wringing out a cloth. Harry gasped in discomfort and sagged down, catching himself on his fists with an effort. Then he was human again, and no one had watched him change, which might put them off their dinners.

He picked up his wand, which he had concealed in a notch at the foot of the tree, and strolled inside. He couldn't see Draco, but then again, late afternoons seemed to be his turn to nap or examine the nearest parts of the garden for God knew what ingredients. Harry turned towards the stairs.

"Potter."

Harry started badly. With the leftover dazzle of the sun in his eyes as he came through the door, he hadn't realized Snape was sitting on the couch in the drawing room. Just in time, Harry remembered to call him by his first name and nodded cautiously back. "Severus. Hullo."

"Come here."

Cautiously, Harry went nearer. It wasn't that he was _frightened _of Snape, not exactly. Desire did well through him when he saw him with Draco, after all, and Harry was coming to realize that he watched Snape's fingers when they picked up food the way he watched the curve of Draco's shoulder or the line of his throat. The main problem was that he never knew what would happen next. This was too new for that.

"I think you are not comfortable around me." Snape was sitting with his hands held in front of his lips like he was modeling for the statue of a classic evil Dark Lord. _He couldn't be basing it on Voldemort, he has too much nose, _Harry thought, and then swallowed a hysterical laugh and sat down on the couch before he said something stupid.

"No," he did say, when he realized that Snape was really waiting for an answer. "I'm not."

"I see." Snape studied him with those dark eyes that seemed to reflect light back rather than take it in. Harry stared, then remembered he was staring and looked away. He heard a rustle from Snape, but the only thing the man said was, "Why?"

Harry licked his lips and told himself that he had to give an honest answer. He'd had his chance to brood about this, the way that Draco had spent time brooding and clucking over the effort of making his own decisions, and he also could have left if he'd decided the experiment wouldn't work out. It was about time that he faced up to the task of making things function.

"Because I think that you and Draco have a deeper bond than we ever can," he said, meeting Snape's stare without flinching for the first time in days. "Where we is you and I, or me and him. You base it on similar interests. I can't—I'd be willing to learn more about potions, but I can't make them my life."

"You think we will send you away if you can't," Snape said.

Harry flushed. He hadn't meant to be that _obvious _about the source of the problem, but there it was, laid out in plain words. He nodded. "Yeah."

"I told Draco that I was Slytherin enough to want all I could get," Snape said, "all that anyone was willing to give me. I have taken from unwilling patrons before," he added, as if he could hear the question Harry wanted to ask. "I no longer enjoy it or see any reason to do so."

Harry nodded again.

"Why would I want a second Draco?" Snape asked, his voice so soft it might have sounded threatening if Harry hadn't been looking at his face. "I have one who can share my interests, yes, and converse with me on a level you cannot reach. But I do not want two."

Harry blinked. That was one thing he had never thought about. Snape—Severus—and Draco seemed to be bonding so well that he had assumed it was the only way Snape could bond with someone.

_That was a stupid thing to think._

Most of the things that Harry assumed were, he had to admit. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't think. But what _are _we going to talk about, if we don't talk about potions?"

Severus was silent for so long that Harry assumed the question had stumped him as well, though he was studying his fingers with rapid motions of his eyes that suggested it hadn't. Then he looked up and said, "Tell me why you became what you are instead of an Auror." His voice was uncertain, perhaps because of the subject, perhaps simply because he didn't know what name to give Harry's job.

Harry nodded slowly. He could talk about personal things, though he wondered how long it would be before those ran out and they were left with the minefield of either the war or their years at Hogwarts, and nothing else.

"I wasn't _good _at being an Auror," he said. "It wasn't what I wanted. Too distant from helping people. I knew that Ron wanted to be one, and Hermione has always wanted to be a lawyer—well, for at least a year before she started the training, anyway. They had this faith in their actions that I lacked. A certainty that they were doing the right thing. I never felt it, and wondered if that was wrong."

"You wonder if many things are wrong," Severus murmured. His hand twitched as if he would reach out and touch Harry, but it didn't happen. "Why?"

"Because I'm afraid of what would happen if I didn't, I suppose," Harry said, and passed on. He didn't think his conscience was interesting, especially not to someone like Severus, who had to be tired of Gryffindor qualms after having Dumbledore for a friend. "I had a fight with my friends when I quit Auror training, but more because I locked myself up in my house to think about it and they couldn't reach me than because I quit. They didn't pretend to understand my decisions. They just supported them."

He felt a warm glow as he thought about his friends, and then shook his head. They were wonderful people. He wondered if he should feel worse than he did about leaving them behind, although he had visited twice already, once to have dinner with the Weasleys and once to go over legal documents that might pertain to Narcissa Malfoy's case with Hermione. It was going to be harder to get her free than it had been to get Draco retried, since she'd been in Azkaban for six years already.

And he wondered if he would ever get the level of support from Snape and Draco that he did from the Weasleys.

"Why an Animagus?" Severus insisted. His fingers again twitched as if he would touch Harry, but this time he actually completed the movement, to Harry's astonishment, reaching out and laying a hand on his. Harry felt the touch go through him like a sudden storm and took a careful moment to answer.

"I'd discovered that I could become an Animagus. It seemed stupid not to use that talent to help people. I could still investigate and discover the solution to mysteries the way I would have been able to if I'd stayed an Auror."

"Knowing things is important to you," Severus said in a murmur.

Harry nodded, and then grinned. "But not knowing potions. It's too _orderly _for me." He had never known that before, but the words waltzed off his tongue with the ease of long insight, and Severus nodded back as though he'd expected them. "I need something that's more chaotic. I work with the Aurors sometimes, which gives me the need to follow rules, but I'm happiest on my own, investigating situations that don't have the potential to turn as sour."

"You ought to be happy in _this _situation," Snape said. "It could turn chaotic at any moment."

"It's been pretty ordered so far," Harry said. "I think we were afraid of hurting each other's feelings. But now I want to try something new." When Severus raised a sardonic eyebrow, Harry leaned nearer and kissed him.

Severus's lips were as dry as he remembered last time, but this time they parted, and Harry found himself headlong in the middle of a snog before he was ready. Panic bolted through him, and he was tempted to withdraw.

_No. No, I don't want to._

Harry had to curl his fingers into the material of the couch to keep on kissing Severus, but he managed it, and then Severus clamped a hand on the back of his neck with a little snarl and began to kiss back.

Harry found himself borne backwards, heavily, with Snape's weight coming down on top of him. Harry gasped a little. Severus was heavier than he looked, and he liked to drive his elbow home in Harry's gut. But they became more comfortably arranged when Severus discovered what the problem was, and then Severus discovered places in Harry's mouth that made him shiver and shy and scratch, which he'd never known about before.

Long, drugged minutes passed before Severus lifted his head, eyes half-shut. Harry smiled. He might have been about to purr.

"We cannot simply kiss whenever a conversation becomes awkward," Severus murmured.

"I know," Harry said. "But it gives us something else to talk about, doesn't it?" When Severus stared at him as if longing to know whether that statement was real, Harry added, "And I feel more comfortable now."

"I reckon we might thank Merlin for that, at least," Severus said, and lay on him for a short time more, lingering, before they stood up and he led Harry in for his latest session in the lab.

* * *

Harry was doing his best to make himself agreeable to Draco, but his best could do no good. Or so Severus thought, as he watched them over the next several days.

Draco would only grunt and not look up from his books when Harry passed through the drawing room or came into the kitchen. Several times Harry had cooked, and while Severus thanked him for the food, Draco had hunched his shoulders as though trying to throw off an unwilling obligation. The most he would do was meet his eyes for one quick moment and then look away again.

Harry put up with it all patiently, far more patiently than Severus would have. He wondered if that wasn't part of the problem. Draco was used to people who made their displeasure known to him. They need not be direct—Severus found it hard to envision Lucius being direct once Draco was older than two—but he would know what he had done wrong and what the consequences were to be.

Harry wouldn't tell him. He glanced away from the insults, and he stood up and walked out of the room when it became clear that Draco would respond to none of his conversational gambits. Draco might well think that he could keep on being rude forever. Harry would either smile and nod, or give up in silence and go away.

Severus did not mean to spy on them, but he was on his way from the lab to a shelf that contained the reference book he wanted on the day that Harry finally lost his temper.

"I don't want you here," Draco's sullen voice said from immediately outside the window Severus was passing. He tilted his head, listening. Since he could see neither of them, he immediately guessed that neither of them could see him, and he might as well pause and wait.

"Well, I'm going to fly in another part of the grounds," Harry said, and Severus heard a series of slight sounds which might have been Harry walking up one of the dirt paths into the middle of the garden.

"I don't want to see you," Draco continued. "Go away."

Severus rolled his eyes. That was the childish part of Draco, the one that Harry had acted as if he didn't believe in. He hadn't _heard _it yet, that was the problem. Draco could be charming much of the time, but when he encountered an obstacle that didn't melt away as he thought it should, then he would get snappish.

"I don't want to," Harry answered, and his voice had deepened and sharpened. Severus longed to step nearer so that he could see them through the window, but didn't do so, more for fear of being spotted than anything else. He didn't want to interrupt the progress of the argument, either. "I have as much right to be here as you do, and—"

"_You_ weren't the one who spent six years here. You don't belong here as much as Severus and I do."

Severus winced and started to think that he should reveal himself after all. If Harry wouldn't fight back against that, the chances that Draco would respect him were small.

"I want to belong," Harry said, and his voice had lowered even more. "But your stupidity might prevent that."

_Ah. _Severus stepped back into his original position with an undercurrent of amusement moving through his suspense. The stunned silence that had followed Harry's declaration was its own reward.

"You can't say that," Draco said, but his voice shook.

"Why not? I've tried to give you time and freedom, and it just gets me sneered at. I've tried to understand when you and Severus spend more time with each other than with me, but you ignore me anyway. I've tried and tried and _tried _to be patient. You turn your head away when I enter the room. I think you were responding more to me when we argued than you are now."

"I don't—I need some time."

"Yes, I know that," Harry said. "I wasn't talking about my pressuring you to make your decisions. I was talking about your treating me as though I don't have the right to live in the house that you both agreed I could stay in."

More silence. Severus wondered if Draco was ashamed. It was sometimes hard for him to be, as he would react to shame with anger, and so snap away from the emotion he should truly feel.

"You changed your mind about being attracted to me _awfully _quickly," Draco said, his mutter making it into an accusation.

"And are people not allowed to do that?" Harry demanded. "I did it with Severus, too. It happens that way sometimes. And I'm waiting because I don't know if the consequences are going to last, although I hope so."

"You haven't tried to touch me since the first day you were here," Draco said.

Severus's second roll of his eyes was simultaneous with Harry's disgusted snort. "Because you've been _so _inviting. Should I have forced myself on you so that you could protest about the way that I didn't respect your decisions? What few of them you make."

Severus suspected Harry was probably sorry for those last words, but when he dared to lean forwards and peer out the window, it was to see Harry striding away with his back firm and straight, while Draco stood there on the path and blinked like a fool. He looked at the book in his hand, then turned towards the house.

Knowing Draco must think he hadn't overheard the conversation, Severus jerked back from the window and hurried to fetch the book he had wanted, then returned to the lab.

Harry didn't return until late in the evening. Draco still avoided his eyes, but he also gave him speculative glances when he thought Harry wasn't watching. Severus noticed that those glances held more of _honest _longing than they had in the last fortnight.

_Perhaps Harry should lose his temper more often._


	18. The Spinning World

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eighteen—This Spinning World_

"Harry, can you come at once? I think I may have evidence of tampering in the original trial that would mean we could free Mrs. Malfoy immediately."

Hermione's Patronus, an otter standing upright in the middle of the kitchen table, flicked its tail and vanished the moment it spoke those words. That left Harry, Draco, and Snape all staring at where it had been with expressions that Harry suspected were shocked. Or at least Snape looked shocked. He concealed it by looking down at his plate in the next moment and flicking his fingers as if in answer to the motion of the otter's tail.

Draco looked more than shocked; he looked dazed. He closed his eyes, opened them again, and then whispered, "I had no idea Granger was that close."

"Neither did I," Harry had to say, because with the way Draco's mind worked lately, he would find some way to turn this into an accusation against Harry in the next minute for not telling him everything. Harry pushed himself to his feet. "I'll try to be back by this afternoon." He could send an owl if he wasn't, but he knew that Snape—Severus—was paranoid about owls possibly carrying too much information back to Harry's friends.

"I'm coming with you."

Harry blinked at Draco, who had also stood up and had an expression of determination on his face so strong that Harry could just imagine what would happen if he tried to dissuade him. Harry frowned, considered objecting, and then decided that he had no right to. Draco wanted to see his mother freed, and it was possible that he could add information to Hermione's store that she didn't have already.

"All right," he said, and went to fetch his cloak.

There was silence behind him for so long that Harry wondered if Draco had changed his mind. But Draco came running after him in the next instant, eyes narrowed. Perhaps he thought that would distract Harry from noticing the confusion that filled them. "Did you hear what I said, Potter? I'm coming with you."

"I know," Harry said. "Maybe you can help us reassure your mother, if we get in to see her today, and maybe Hermione can use your help with details that she doesn't know. You have a right to come along, anyway, because it's your mother." He spoke without looking at Draco's face, because he would feel the temptation to snap if he did, and that wouldn't make for a pleasant journey.

"You have an answer for everything," Draco said, in a bristling hiss, and then stomped away down the corridor that led from the drawing room towards his bedroom. Harry turned to watch him go. Every line of Draco's back radiated angry indignation.

Harry shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Exactly what else was he supposed to be doing? He tried to be kind and patient, and Draco reacted as if Harry had slapped him. He tried to hold his ground while not hurting Draco, and it turned out that he'd hurt Draco anyway. There didn't seem to be any answer to this problem, and Harry had no idea _why_.

"You must not be so gentle with him."

Harry started. He hadn't heard Snape come up behind him. He turned and frowned, especially when he realized that Snape was staring at him with dark eyes that suggested the fault was his own. "What, and hurt him even worse with insults?" Harry asked. "_Nothing _I do is right, so I might as well do what's most comfortable for me."

Snape looked amused, damn him. "But it isn't what's most comfortable for you," he said. "You want to snap and let him bear the full brunt of your temper. And why not? It is a most frustrating thing to think you know people, know their faults and tempers, and then find they have transformed themselves into saints when you aren't looking."

Harry stared at him. "Draco's been angry because I've been _patient_?" he asked. "But he deserves patience. He's been through awful things."

Snape narrowed his eyes a bit and twitched his head as if he resented the allusion to those awful things—which included him, Harry only remembered now—but he went on before Harry could apologize. "This is not the man that he thinks you should be, the man who destroyed my lab and fought with him in Hogwarts," he said. "Yes, he is uneasy around you because he can see you suppressing the anger. And when he can't, he _thinks _you are."

"I'm not the boy I was in Hogwarts," Harry said gruffly, checking up the corridor to see if Draco was coming back. Not yet.

"You are not the saint you have been portraying, either," Snape said, his voice as sharp now as some of the dicing knives he'd shown Harry in the potions lab. "Why would you wish to be?"

Harry shook his head. "I just—I was a little shit when I was younger, all right? I made all sorts of mistakes, all sorts of snap judgments, while I went around thinking that I was right and righteous just because I was fighting Voldemort. And then I didn't get to do as much as I wanted to when you were in prison and awaiting trial because of that stupid sickness. I decided that I had to grow up, and I told myself that I would never be as oblivious as that again."

"Ah," Snape said, his voice oddly satisfied. "So this is another concession to your martyr complex and need to feel guilt. I might have guessed."

Harry glared, but Draco came panting up just then, slinging his cloak round his shoulders as if he was afraid of Harry leaving him behind, and it had to wait. Harry just nodded curtly and swept out the door with Draco right behind him.

When he glanced back, Harry saw Snape staring after them, and it struck him like a blow how it must seem to him, to watch two young men who were free to venture back into the world from this warded cottage, while he had to stay inside it because the outside world had to be kept ignorant of his existence. Harry winced. He wouldn't be able to put up with such confinement himself, and even if Snape was content most of the time, that didn't mean that he didn't ever long for a change.

Hesitantly, Harry raised his hand and waved to Snape—no, Severus, he should be thinking of him that way since it was what he had told Harry he would prefer to be called. Severus's eyes flared in surprise before he shut the door and his expression at the same time. Harry sighed and turned forwards.

"What has Granger been researching?" Draco demanded.

Harry gritted his teeth. "You know as well as I do," he said. "The trial itself, and the laws surrounding the imprisonment of people who were only incidentally involved in the risings of Dark Lords, most of them going back to the threat from Grindelwald. I don't know what this thing is that she's discovered."

"You might have," Draco said. "It's not as though you'd been completely forthcoming since we came here."

Harry lost his temper before he could think about. He swung about and grabbed Draco's wrist, squeezing hard enough that Draco couldn't stifle a yelp. Harry thrust his face into the other man's and snapped, "I don't _know _more than what I told you. I'm not lying, you suspicious little shit. I just don't have anything more to say."

Draco stared at him. And then he relaxed and even managed a half-gracious smile and a nod. "I only wanted to be sure," he said.

Baffled, Harry released him and started walking towards the edge of the garden again, keeping one eye on Draco. He seemed perfectly content to follow, humming under his breath and admiring the branches arching above him as though he had never been in a bad mood.

_It's as though he thinks my anger is such a huge part of me that I'm lying by being kind to him._

But Draco hadn't reacted like that all the time. He had been eager enough to listen to Harry when Harry wanted him to escape from Severus, and he had invited himself along to live with Harry before Harry considered suggesting it. He hadn't seemed to think Harry should yell at him _then_. So what was the difference?

_Maybe living with me long enough, past the initial moment when I helped him, makes him think that I should have showed more of myself._

Harry grimaced. His friends had sometimes told him that hiding when he was angry and trying to be as compassionate as he could was hiding who he really was. Harry didn't think so. After all, he _did _like to help people, and he would have been lying if he said that he didn't. He could never please everyone anyway, so he might as well do what made him comfortable and would ease the lives of others.

_I'm not easing Draco's life right now, though._

Harry decided that was probably the biggest argument in favor of altering his behavior to Draco: he didn't want to hurt him, and Draco, for whatever reason, was hurt that Harry didn't snap at him or show when he was exasperated. A strange wish, but if that was what he wanted, then Harry would give it to him.

And, he had to admit, it would be nice not to have to act as if he thought Draco's objections were reasonable all the time.

* * *

"So, you see," Granger said, letting the scroll in her hand snap shut with a sound that would have made Draco jump if he hadn't been expecting it, "one of the witnesses in the original trial was bribed to suppress some circumstances and exaggerate others." She had a smile like a dog that had just chased a cat from the room without being scolded for it, Draco decided. "Unfortunately for them, they were stupid enough to leave evidence behind of what they'd done."

Potter seemed to have followed the torrent of information Granger had poured over their heads better than Draco had. He nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose. "But you saw how reluctant the Wizengamot was to give Draco a second trial. Are we going to be able to persuade them to consider a second one for Mrs. Malfoy?"

_Narcissa, _Draco wanted to say. _My mother's name is Narcissa. _But he knew that he had no reason to expect Potter and Granger to call her that, so he kept silent and watched while Granger nodded.

"They don't like the publicity that this second trial for Malfoy unleashed on them," Granger said coolly. "Now people are thinking back to the decisions that they made in the wake of the war and wondering if all of them were as flawed as that one. There are some people I think that they won't retry no matter the provocation, including Lucius Malfoy." She nodded her apology to Draco. Draco nodded back, although his throat felt tight. He had always known that his father had chosen his course, and left far too much evidence of his crimes behind, to make release realistic. "But now they're going to be cautious, jumpy. They'll want to be seen as doing the right thing. If we _can_ obtain evidence that Mrs. Malfoy needed to be retried, which I have right here—" she tapped the scroll "—then they'll do it because they want to seem friendly and compliant and eager."

"I see." Potter's eyes were half-lidded. Draco wondered what was going on behind them. He so rarely knew what Potter was thinking, and that was part of the reason that he held back and distrusted the man when he tried to be nice. Draco _knew _he wasn't nice all the time. What was the point of pretending he was? "Is there any way that this could go wrong?"

"I'll see when I bring the issue before the Wizengamot," Granger said. "I don't know all the possible ramifications of throwing a stone at the hornets' nest yet."

Potter nodded. "Good." He was cocking his head as if in distraction, though, and rubbed his fingers along the top of the table for long moments before he continued. Granger watched him with a patience that Draco thought was real on her part. They were seated in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, and Kreacher had already been in and out several times, eyes streaming with ecstasy as he carried plates and glasses and cutlery.

"How great a hardship would it be for you to do one more trial, after this?" Potter asked abruptly.

"No hardship at all," Granger said, and grinned. "Do you _know _what this is doing for my reputation as a lawyer? I have a lot more clients now than I did."

_See? _Draco asked the air. _Granger has Gryffindor compassion and all that, but she also acknowledges that she has ambitions and desires of her own. That's what I want to see Potter express. Just that._

"But I told you before," Granger continued in a cautioning tone, "I don't think I could free Lucius."

"I know," Potter said. "This is—someone else." The way he cleared his throat and touched the place where his pulse beat a moment later let Draco know who he meant, though the Unbreakable Vow prevented him from saying much more than he had. "But I can't talk about it yet, because I promised I wouldn't. If I ever get permission, I just want to know if you'd consider taking the case up."

He broke off, coughing, and Granger frowned at him. Draco could see the dark flash in her eyes that probably meant she'd figured out it was an Unbreakable Vow. But she looked down at the tabletop and said neutrally, "Of course. If you get permission."

"Thank you," Potter gasped, and stood up to get some water. Of course, Kreacher appeared to him on his way to the sink and offered a glass of water with a stern expression. Potter drank it, looking sheepish.

Granger turned at once to Draco. "Is that what it looks like?" she demanded in a lowered voice.

Draco nodded. He didn't think he could have done otherwise, faced with Granger's terrifying eyes, and Severus would just have to understand.

"How could you let him do that?" Granger's hand shot out and closed on Draco's arm with bruising force, the way Potter had done this morning. This time, though, there was no distinctive tingle of pleasure the way Draco had felt when Potter touched him. "Do you know how easily Vows kill?"

"Yes, I do," Draco snapped, thinking of the Vow Severus had sworn to murder Dumbledore in his place. "I do, actually."

Granger remembered his history in the next moment, as he could see by the paling of her cheeks. But she didn't offer the frantic apologies he would have received, and found so annoying, from Potter. She simply sat back, removed her hand from his arm, and scanned him. Draco looked back, arms folded, until Potter returned to the table.

"Anyway," Potter continued, as if he had had nothing but an ordinary coughing fit, "when will we have to come back for the trial?"

"A few days, no more than that." Granger looked down at the scroll in front of her with a faint smile. "The evidence I have is too clear."

Potter nodded. "Thanks." He stood up, hugged Granger, and then motioned to Draco to follow him. Draco rolled his eyes, but shook Granger's hand and did so.

He knew that Granger was studying them all the way out, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do about it, so he simply didn't look back.

* * *

"Would you be willing to speak to Ron and Hermione and take off this Unbreakable Vow so that they can try to get you freed?"

Severus had nothing in his hands at that moment, and could be grateful for it, when he saw the way his fingers shook. Perhaps that shaking would not have been enough to make any vials he held plummet to the ground, but he wouldn't have wanted to risk it. So he watched them shake, and then stepped back and turned around to confront Harry.

Harry, who was standing beside the pair of scales where Severus had instructed him to weigh dandelion leaves, frankly stared. His face looked flushed, but his eyes darted from side to side for long moments before they returned to Severus's face.

"Well?" he asked.

"You do not know what you are asking of me," Severus said, and his voice was so soft that Harry frowned and cocked his head. Severus cleared his throat. The shock should be wearing off soon, he thought, and then he might speak more effectively. "You do not know what would happen to me if I went back to the wizarding world."

"They would seize you and want to try you again," Harry said, with a nod. "I know. But we would prevent them from doing that, I promise. Hermione thinks that she can get Mrs. Malfoy retried, because she found out that they'd suborned a witness during the original trial. Your imprisonment never happened, but with Hermione to argue that the example of Draco's trial and Mrs. Malfoy's provides—"

"You do not understand." Severus knew his voice was hollow and that he was exposing more of his fragility than he truly wanted, but he could not help himself. He gestured to the lab around him. "Imagine what would happen if I were to leave a place where I had been content for six years, and suddenly have contact with many more people than you two. Draco has told me what his difficulties were, and he had been discontent and dreaming of a difference for some time. I cannot imagine mine."

"We would do our best to make sure that no one taunted you," Harry said.

The words told Severus he had still not grasped the enormity of the problem. He shook his head. "But others would see my weakness."

Harry's forehead wrinkled, over the old scar. "So?"

Severus felt the quick leap of his anger, and welcomed the flame of it as a means of dispelling the cold mist that the shock seemed to have wrapped around him. He stepped forwards and stared at Harry's stubborn, obtuse face. "You _stupid _boy. Do you not see? You might be able to live with the exposure of those vulnerabilities. Draco could because he has heard me mocking him for six years. But I could not. My pride is too great."

Harry rested a hand carefully on top of the table next to him. His face gave little away, except for the compassion in his eyes, but Severus was satisfied by the careful motion of his hand that he understood now.

Until he said, "What a load of bollocks."

"Excuse me?" Severus knew his voice had gone deadly soft. He was not inclined to try and change that at the moment. He narrowed his eyes at Harry and waited for him to apologize, to change his mind.

It seemed, however, that Harry had taken Severus's advice about letting his temper loose and applied it far too well. His eyes were bright with anger now, not sympathy, and he took a step away from the table and towards Severus as if he would seize his shoulders and shake him. "You heard me," Harry said, voice soft in turn. "I think it's a load of bollocks. You're stronger than that. You're simply afraid of what would happen if you let the world back into your consciousness, after shutting it out for so long."

"I will remind you that you are a guest in my house," Severus said through cold lips, "and I am not used to my guests insulting me."

Harry rolled his eyes. Severus knew that voice could intimidate Draco. He was unsure why it did not work as well with Harry, who was the same age—younger, in fact—and whom Severus had begun to kiss and treat as a potential lover, and who had admitted that he was not the same brash youngster he had been in his Hogwarts days. "This house belongs to both of you, and Draco admitted that I could stay as well," he said. "I think I owe it to both of you to tell you when you're acting ridiculous. You are."

"You go too far," Severus whispered.

"It's all too plain that no one has gone far _enough _with you," Harry said in irritation. "Yes, yes, I know, you've been injured by the world and forced to hide away for six years. I swear there's something in this cottage that poisons minds. Draco had the courage to walk away from it, only to lapse into stupidity when he came back. And you're acting as though you couldn't survive beyond its four walls. And I've been biting my tongue since I came here. I think I shouldn't have."

"You are younger," Severus said. "Outside our relationship. You cannot understand."

Harry looked at him unflinchingly. "And you were the one who invited me into it. If we're ever going to make this work as a threesome, then I have to be honest." He didn't even have the grace to blush when he said the word _threesome,_ Severus thought, unusual as he knew such a word—such a _concept_—was for Harry. "You and Draco are both hiding. Maybe that's fine, for a while. I'll let you have the time to hide. But if you _never _emerge, then you're effectively saying that all those people in the wizarding world are right about you."

Every time Severus thought he had reached the bottom level of the well of shock that Harry could drop him into, he reached some new one. He gurgled on his emotion, and Harry snickered.

"They said that you were a coward," Harry said. "That that was why you murdered Dumbledore, instead of finding some better way. That you were a coward to run, instead of stay and face the Wizengamot. That your Potions skill couldn't have been what you claimed it was, since so many of your students were poor."

He took another step forwards and reminded Severus unpleasantly of a lion bringing a gazelle to bay. Severus could only hope that he would not be devoured, though he blamed his lack of retort on the shock alone.

"You're a coward if you allow fear to control your life," Harry said, his voice and face burning with conviction. "For a while, sure. If you need a rest and relaxation period, the way Draco does. But not _forever. _And I know that you're capable of revolts against your fear, because you kissed me and claimed me."

Severus's body, disobedient to his wishes as it had never been, burned at the thought of "claiming" Harry.

Harry seemed oblivious. "And you're not as good at Potions as you think you are if you hide here forever and let others make the discoveries. Oh, I know," he added impatiently when Severus opened his mouth to speak. "You publish some of your discoveries under a false name. But the name is false. And if you can't travel to other countries and meet with other Potions masters, watch their techniques and exchange information first-hand, then your skills will always be stunted. I know enough about Potions to know that."

Severus clenched his fists. "How can I do such a thing until my name is cleared?"

Harry smiled, eyes flashing, and Severus realized he had walked right into the bastard's trap. "And I'm offering you a chance to clear your name," Harry said. "One that I want you to think more about, rather than dismissing me with that ridiculous load about how you'll collapse if you leave the cottage."

He leaned forwards, kissed Severus hard enough to cut his lips on his teeth, and then turned around and stormed out of the lab.

Severus closed his eyes, overwhelmed less by shock now than the notion that Harry might care enough for him to _want _freedom, and reputation, and honor, for both him and Draco.


	19. Decision Time

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nineteen—Decision Time_

Harry sometimes thought that he'd never known less about what he was doing than he did right now.

Severus and Draco were both walking softly around him, talking of neutral topics when they had to and devoting the rest of their attention to their food or books or potions. Harry wondered if they would be happiest if he simply flew through the wards and never came back. Draco apparently hadn't expected Harry to stick up for himself, and Severus seemed to have thought that the advice about Harry losing his temper would only apply to Draco.

Doubts came and danced up and down in Harry's mind when he was lying in bed the evening after his confrontation with Severus.

_I should have been kinder. I should have said things more politely. I should have backed off and started talking about something else when I saw that he was uncomfortable._

He went to sleep in keen regret and woke up expecting severe words at breakfast that morning. If _he _could see that he was in the wrong, then surely Severus and Draco had to be able to see it as well.

But that was the first of the meals where Severus and Draco didn't talk about anything unnecessary, and when Harry glanced up because he'd felt Severus's eyes on him, it was to see Severus looking hastily away.

He waited, but no one told him that he was wrong the next day, or the day after that. So the conclusion slowly formed in Harry's mind, coming together like water solidifying into ice, that perhaps he hadn't been wrong.

_Careful, _he told himself. _You could be getting drunk with power just because no one will contradict you. And that might mean that you hurt them, or demand sacrifices from them that they aren't ready to make._

Yes, perhaps it meant that, but Harry also remembered what Severus had said about his martyr complex and need for guilt. He would have to trust Draco and Severus to stand up for themselves—something Severus had experience in and Harry thought Draco was learning again—and let him know when he had gone too far.

That was, frankly, terrifying. Harry wanted to help people. He didn't want to hurt them. Those two principles had been the guiding tenets of his life ever since he had quit the Auror program. He itched to help Draco and Severus make their decisions.

_So that's your trial, the thing that you need to learn how to live with no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. Hold back and let them take a few steps on their own, without you hovering at their sides to help._

Harry ached with anticipated guilt and longing and remorse, but he bit his tongue and held his peace.

* * *

Draco could no longer pretend, even to himself, that he was reading all the books that Potter had brought from his house with the same enjoyment and lack of discrimination. He was, in fact, reading more and more in potions. He might pick up a book on law and history, but he found himself thinking of equations and recipes in the middle of dry passages. Two minutes later, the law or history book was back on the pile or the shelf and he had a potions book in his hand.

He was cutting down the field. He was narrowing his interests and choosing what he should focus on. He was admitting that not everything interested him and that he would be the kind of Potions master that Severus had always professed to see in him.

He was _making a decision._

The first time that he realized that, Draco banged the book he held down on his knees and glared at the wall for half an hour. It was less resentment against himself—the process had happened so naturally that he couldn't accuse himself of listening to other people—than resentment against the fact that Potter had been right.

Potter walked through the room just then. Draco turned his head and narrowed his eyes at him, to see if he would smirk.

Potter glanced at him and looked hastily away. He muttered something and sped up. When he went into the gardens, Draco counted three heartbeats under his breath, then stood up and strolled to the window. He knew how long it usually took for Potter to get beyond the confining bushes immediately around the door into the gardens and then change shape. He should see him rising—

Yes. There. Potter's wings beat lazily once, and then he was aloft and hurtling into the branches of the oak with an air of injured dignity. Perhaps he assumed Draco was plotting against him.

Draco shook his head, lips tight. The uneasy truce between him and Potter sometimes smoldered with what Draco thought was an edge of passion, and sometimes burned in cold anger, and sometimes seemed not to exist, as if they could live in the same house and ignore each other. It had to change.

And that was another decision.

Draco turned and slapped the wall open-palmed. The book did bang to the floor this time, and Draco hastily stooped and retrieved it. No matter how much Potter annoyed him, he couldn't justify taking out the anger on helpless books.

"Is something the matter, Draco?" Severus asked from behind him, voice as poised and calm as if he came into the drawing room to find Draco doing this every day.

Draco hissed and checked to make sure that neither the cover nor the front pages of the book were bent before he answered. "No," he said. "Not—as such. I just realized that I have to do something about Potter." He turned around and lifted his eyes to Severus's face, not sure what he would encounter there. "I made a choice. As he said I would."

Severus granted him a quick smile, so swift a shadow that Draco knew many people who would say it had not been there at all. Potter, Weasley, Weasley's idiotic twin brothers, Granger—

_Well, no, _Draco had to concede, thinking of the way Granger had worked back and forth in front of the Wizengamot, hands weaving the skein that her voice took up. _I reckon she would see it and understand it._

"Think of it as a victory for yourself, something that may settle the course of your studies and your days," Severus advised him. "It is what I most often do when Harry annoys me. What changes he causes are for me, not for him, even if they are because of him. Change the nature of the relationship between effect and cause, and you may accept the benefit while ignoring the cost—at least in humiliation."

Draco nodded. "I have to speak to him. This can't go on. I need him to be—" He floundered a bit at that. You couldn't really ask someone to be less right than he was. "Less righteous," he said at last.

"Mention your decisions," Severus said. "Delight may overwhelm him and lessen the annoyance of his manner."

"If he wasn't annoying, he wouldn't be Harry," Draco said. He touched the back of his mouth with his tongue after he spoke the name, to see if it had carved a bloody channel along his palate as it flew. Not yet.

"Then accept the deficiencies of his manner," Severus said, in a tone that suggested he was growing bored with the conversation, and started to turn away.

Draco took a deep breath and said something that felt incredibly daring to him, though, now that he thought of it, there was no reason it should have. "I want you with me when I speak to him."

Severus turned around, the shadow of a frown in his eyes.

Draco explained hastily, glancing out the window into the gardens to make sure that Harry hadn't come back yet. It would be awkward if he walked into a conversation discussing how to deal with him, rather than a conversation about him, which might only be a coincidence. "Whenever I speak to him, these _barriers _come up. All I can remember is that he was pushing me. Now that I've come to a few decisions, that shouldn't matter as much, but I'm afraid it will. With you there, we can speak about other things."

Severus compressed his lips. "I may not be as good an ally as you think me. I have my own reasons to fear that my tongue will stop around Harry." Draco nodded encouragingly, and Severus went on a few moments later, though with continual glances into the garden. "He offered to help me gain my freedom back. He did not seem to understand my objections, or rather he overrode them and challenged me to override them."

"That's what he did to me!" Draco exclaimed. "At least, we share the same experience. Maybe this time, we can prevent him from doing the same thing."

"Admitting that he was right, that you must make decisions eventually, is not the same thing as admitting that he was right about my releasing him from the Unbreakable Vow so that my case might go to trial," Severus said in a low, agitated voice, and eased backwards, in the direction of the lab.

"I know," Draco said. He tried not to sound too much like he was soothing Severus. He had responded badly to that in the past. "But I didn't want to make decisions, and he acted as if I should. He acted the same way about a possible trial for you, didn't he?"

Severus nodded slowly, still looking as if he would prefer to escape. But Draco had learned that he couldn't hide, and he had begun to think it might do Severus good to come out into the open, too.

_As much in the open as this cottage and a conversation with sympathetic people is, anyway._

"I want him to know that I apologize for _some _of what I said," Draco said. "Not the whole thing. But that's the difficulty with him. You start talking, and he interrupts with this reasonable little peroration, and you get distracted and start arguing about side issues. I need someone who can help me keep focused on the main topic, so that he doesn't win."

As he had thought would happen, that last word caught Severus's attention. He raised his eyebrows and leaned forwards. "Do you see your conversations with him as a battle?"

"They have been so far," Draco admitted. He caught a glimpse of grey in the gardens and watched Harry swooping in his parrot form around trunks and through gracefully hanging branches. "And to think I thought I would have nice, pleasant little meditations in his presence that a dumb animal couldn't respond to," he muttered.

Severus's laughter broke on him like a mountain waterfall. Draco smiled and turned to him. "Will you help me confront him?" He made sure to keep his voice lighter this time, so Severus would read it more as a question than a demand.

Severus's face went unreadable again. After a few moments when he might also have been watching Harry in his parrot form, he nodded. "Yes. I am eager to hear what he has to say, in the presence of both of us at once."

* * *

Harry knew something was wrong the moment he stepped into the house. Or different, at least. Both Severus and Draco were in the drawing room, nothing unusual, but neither had a book spread open on his lap or the aloof expressions that they wore when he interrupted a private discussion about potions. They stared at him, instead, and seemed intent on counting the number of grass blades he'd got in his hair. Self-consciously, Harry reached up to pick them free.

"We wanted to talk to you," Draco said. He couldn't have hit the word _we _harder if he'd had a hammer. It practically vibrated in the close confines of the cottage.

Harry nodded and turned to Severus. The expression on his face was intense, but Harry had expected that. He hadn't expected the way Severus clasped his knees or the gleam in the back of his eyes. He might have been hunting prey. Prey with black hair and green eyes, Harry surmised, and a recent infusion of feathers.

"All right," Harry said, and tried to sound casual and as if he wasn't betraying discomfort. What reason did he have to feel discomfort? They hadn't attacked him, and he thought they would approach kicking him out in a different way. He took the only seat left, on the couch next to Severus—the chairs that usually stood along the walls had been cleared—and tried to look polite and attentive.

Severus's hand settled on his knee. Harry jumped. He had grown used to the rare times that Severus touched him, but it had never happened in front of Draco, and unconsciously Harry had assumed it wouldn't. Until the moment when they were all ready to take to the bed, at least. If that ever happened.

"I made a decision today," Draco announced. He sounded as if he'd found the Philosopher's Stone.

Grateful for a declaration that could get his mind off Severus's hand on his knee, Harry faced Draco and smiled. "Wonderful! What about?" He thought he knew, from the amount of time Draco was spending with Potions books, but he wouldn't have stolen Draco's thunder for worlds.

"I want my career to be in potions," Draco said. _No surprise there, _Harry thought, but he nodded and smiled more broadly, and Draco relaxed. "Severus will help me study for a mastery. The most exclusive exams are given on the Continent, in wizarding communities who won't care about my past or what the Wizengamot may have said. Of course, my freedom will be an asset should I want to sell potions in England. I haven't decided on that yet, though. I may ultimately live in France." He had begun to stroke his knee while he spoke, brows lowered and voice soft as though he was talking to himself.

Harry nodded, and swallowed his protests. If Draco chose to leave them and make his own way in the world, neither Harry nor Severus should stand in his way. Of all of them, he probably needed the independence most.

"I made another decision," Draco said. Harry looked up. "I'm tired of dancing around you and acting as though I'm not conscious of the differences and unvoiced arguments between us. I want it to change. We're going to _talk_, and I'm not letting you out of this room until we've come to some comfortable arrangement."

That was more than Harry had hoped for. He swallowed for a different reason this time and said, "Thank you, Draco. What do you want to talk about first?"

Draco and Severus exchanged a swift glance, which Harry thought he might not have noticed if he hadn't been so attuned to both of them now. Severus started to open his mouth, but closed it at a twitch from Draco. He was the one who turned majestically back to Harry and said, "I want you to know that I still won't like you pressuring me and offering suggestions."

"I wouldn't presume to, now," Harry said, and smiled at him. "You know I don't know anything about potions."

He had thought Draco would laugh. He clenched his fists instead and said, "But I want you involved in my life. We have to decide how to do that without you driving me into a corner. You can make me promises, but promises can be broken. I want to know, now: What do you _want _from me?"

Harry flushed. He didn't think telling them the contents of his last two wet dreams would help matters much. He looked sideways at Severus, wondering what place he had in this, but Severus remained grave and still.

_Well, I'll be honest, even if no one else can be. _"I want to sleep with you," Harry said aloud. "I want to tell you secrets and hear your secrets in return. I want to share a house with you without feeling as if I'm walking on knives. I want to talk with you and know that you respect my intelligence, even if I never learn anything about potions. I want your concern when I go off on my jobs, but not concern stifling enough to hold me back. I want to free your mother if I can, and meet any of your friends you want to become reacquainted with, and have you get along with my friends as best you can."

"I think that sounds reasonable," Severus said, and Harry jumped again. He had assumed, without thinking about it, that Severus's only participation in this discussion would come from his glances with Draco.

"Reasonable," Draco echoed in an ambiguous voice that could have meant either agreement or disagreement. "Perhaps. But how are we to achieve that without putting too much pressure on each other?"

Harry shrugged. "We'll have to disagree some of the time and risk putting pressure on each other some of the time. I don't have a problem forgiving you if you make a mistake." From Draco's narrowed eyes, he didn't think that was the primary problem facing them. Harry smiled sweetly back at him and continued. "And if you tell me when I do something wrong, then I can apologize and correct it."

"I would prefer it if those mistakes never happened at all," Draco said, all stiff voice and shoulders.

"Well, so would I, for that matter," Harry said, a bit annoyed now. He let the annoyance creep into his voice where he would ordinarily have tried to keep it out, remembering what Severus had said about showing his anger. "But it's not possible. What we _have _to do is make compromises and not drive each other away because we're so horrified about the mistakes."

Draco folded his arms. "I was under the impression that _you_ were the one who found mistakes unacceptable."

"I find silence unacceptable," Harry said. "Running away. Turning your head to the side so that you can pretend not to look when the other person enters the room. Pretending that nothing is wrong when you have everything under the sun to settle."

Draco bristled. "I wasn't doing that."

"Not at first," Harry said, and left him to figure out the obvious rejoinder to that.

Draco's fingers clawed into his knees. Severus leaned forwards, reaching out one hand as if to soothe Draco's distress. He kept the hand on Harry's knee in place, and Harry had the oddest sensation that Severus was becoming the bridge between them, the only link holding them together at the moment. "Are all mistakes unforgivable?" Severus murmured.

Draco froze, and then glared. The glare had more force than before, but Harry somehow felt certain that the dangerous moment was past. "I wasn't about to _leave_," he said. "I object to the way he characterized me."

"Then I apologize," Harry said. "But I wish you would talk to me about it, and not only to Severus. I know that you're closer to each other than you are to me. That's inevitable, when you spent years here. But try not to talk across me and act as though I can't hear you."

Draco watched him out of the corner of his eye. "I don't know how to talk to you," he said.

"Open your mouth and move your tongue against your teeth," Harry said. "It forms these things called _sounds_, and we people who speak English put the sounds together into things called _words_. From there—"

"Git," Draco said, but he sounded less upset than Harry would have thought he'd be, given the nature of Harry's teasing. "I mean that I don't know what we have in common. And—" A moment of struggle. His lower lip was caught between his teeth and his neck corded with frustration, his fingers digging into his palms as though he would claw skin from them. Harry cocked his head to the side and waited. He didn't think a word from him could hasten the outcome of the struggle, and it might damage it.

"I owe you too much!" Draco burst out. "You're too _good_, and you adopted me and helped me when you didn't have to. I owe my freedom to you and your friends, and there's no way to make up for that. You still agreed to leave your home and try to live with me, and you've only been angry in the last few days. I don't know how to _answer _that!"

* * *

Severus felt as though someone had taken the tension in him, turned it to smoke, and breathed it out. After all, his tension had been mostly a reflection of Draco's.

_Ah. Now we come to the heart of it._

He had thought that Draco was irritated by Harry's saint-like demeanor, as Severus himself sometimes was. But it ran deeper than that. Draco thought some of the saint-like behavior was real, since he had benefited from it, and he hated owing debts. Of course that would make it difficult for him to talk to Harry, while the knowledge of the debts hung between them and Harry appeared unconscious of it.

"We haven't even discussed the life-debts from the war," Draco was saying in a bitter tone laced with relief. He stroked his knee, then formed his hand into a fist and drummed it on his kneecap instead. Severus flexed his stretched fingers against Draco's wrist. Draco nodded in acknowledgment, but didn't take his eyes from Harry. "I don't know how to pay them all back."

Harry blinked at him, then said, "Would it help if we decided that little by little? This one action pays for that one, and this action pays for another. Would that help?"

Severus stared. _Does he really believe that? Does he plan to simply sit back and accept the gifts that Draco would give him to be free of those obligations?_

But he saw the way that Harry's eyes, fastened on Draco, steadily shone, and he doubted it. Harry would go along with the notion of paying back the debts because that was what Draco needed. In reality, they would be braiding their lives together as they labored at repayment. By the time that Draco found himself free of obligations, he would probably need Harry in other ways and be unwilling to renounce him.

Harry would have what he wanted, while being gracious enough to allow Draco at least the _appearance _of what he wanted instead.

Severus shut his eyes. He felt as though he had turned a book in a page and found the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone facing him.

He had not wanted to let Harry fight for him before the Wizengamot for many reasons, but not the least important was the fact that he would then owe Harry a debt. The notion made him irritable for the same reasons it did Draco. How in the world could he pay the debt back? It would give Harry power over him. More, worse, it was the kind of power that could not be given away or changed. It was the kind of power—of obligation—that Albus had wielded. Severus had always despised that.

But this offered him an out. Whether Harry thought of it the same way or not, he would not use the power the same way Albus had. Albus would have wanted Draco to face the fact that there were some debts that one could simply never pay back, because of their nature. Harry was willing to pretend otherwise, for Draco's sake. He valued comfort and what others needed more than honesty.

Severus thought of himself the same way, though the only comfort he had been willing to pay attention to for several years was his own.

When Draco nodded grudging acceptance of Harry's plan, he might have nodded for Severus as well. Harry's happy smile included both of them.

_I will speak to him about possibly going up before the Wizengamot tomorrow._


	20. Easing In

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty—Easing In_

"I am willing to remove the Unbreakable Vow."

Harry was sitting outside in the garden when the words came to his ears. He had to sit still with his eyes closed for a moment longer, because he was sure that he couldn't really be hearing them. He might have _over_heard them, in a conversation that Severus and Draco were having, but Severus wouldn't be saying this directly to him.

Then he turned his head, and found that it was true.

Severus stood next to the stone bench that Harry had selected for his half-dozing, half-daydreaming session, eyes so dark that Harry could only imagine the courage it must have taken him to work up to this moment. But he had done it, and his gaze on Harry's face was quietly insistent. He held out a hand, as if to say that Harry wasn't going to be permitted to hide from this when Severus had finally found the courage to face it, and he would pull him into the new reality by main force if he had to.

Harry accepted the hand, and rose to his feet. He felt the shudder of power traveling through Severus's muscles as he performed that simple gesture, and it made him shudder in return. He could imagine the way Severus might use his weight and strength in other circumstances. He coughed and shifted, hoping that Severus would mistake the shuffling as awkwardness rather than embarrassment.

Severus didn't. His eyes flicked downwards, and a pure smirk overtook his mouth. Harry braced himself for any remarks Severus wanted to make, but he turned away with a slight jerk of his head, as though to say that Harry could perfectly well follow him, swollen groin or not.

"I don't know how one goes about releasing an Unbreakable Vow," Harry said as the coolness of the house closed around them once more. "Do we need Draco? Or is it a simple spell or ritual that we can perform on our own?"

"We need Draco," Severus said. His voice went slow and heavy suddenly, and he glanced at Harry as though he might have changed his mind. "Would being alone for this release please you more?"

Harry flushed, tried valiantly not to think of the innuendo in several of those words, and shook his head. "I just meant—I don't know, that's all." He would stick close to simple words and concepts for now, he thought. He was less likely to humiliate himself that way.

"I'm here, Potter." There was a pause, as though Draco had considered the context and weight of his words, and then he sighed and said, "Harry."

Harry swallowed and glanced up. He had assumed that he and Severus were alone, although he didn't know why. He knew how dim the room always seemed when one came in from the gardens, and if he had missed Draco sitting on the couch against the far wall once, that meant he could miss him other times.

Now Draco rose to his feet and came towards him with eyes so wide that Harry wondered if he was frightened. His hair clung around his cheeks and made Harry's fingers itch to smooth it back. He reached out and clasped Harry's hand, and the cold clamminess to his skin made Harry even more certain that he didn't want to be here. Harry tried to clamp down in a way that Draco could take for reassurance rather than desperation.

"Are you going to be all right if we do this now?" he asked quietly. "You look as though you should wait."

Draco bit his lip savagely. Harry would have been worried, but he knew the tactic was one that he used himself when he was trying to distract his own attention from an obsessive emotion or thought. Harry waited instead, making sure never to take his gaze away from Draco or remove his hand from Severus's arm, where he had reached out to place it. He wanted to show that he valued both of them, although he thought Draco might need the attention more right now.

"I want to be here," Draco said at last. "It's only my reluctance to do something where I don't know what the consequences will be that's stopping me." He went on before Harry could ask if there were usually bad consequences to releasing an Unbreakable Vow, his head thrown back and his nostrils flared. "Can we count this as payment of one of the debts that I owe you?"

Harry nodded. He didn't know that they _needed _to, but making up for the life-debts was something Draco wanted to do anyway. "If you'd like." He glanced at Severus, only to find him listening with a grave imperturbability that suggested he would give his younger lovers whatever they needed.

_Lovers. _Harry swallowed again. He didn't know if he had earned the right to call them by that name yet.

"Come here," Severus said then, and Harry found that he was kneeling on the floor, tugging Harry irresistibly down with him. Harry knelt and wondered why they had to. Perhaps just because the Vow was going to knock them down when they let it go.

He looked up to see Draco standing above them, with his wand held at the ready. He looked back and forth between Severus and Harry, drew a spiral with his wand that might have imitated the way the tongues of fire had curled about Harry and Severus's wrists all those weeks ago, and then nodded.

"Very well," Severus said. "I, Severus Snape, release you. Harry Potter, from the Unbreakable Vow that I required you to swear. You may not speak freely of our location, our existence, and all other matters covered by the original terms of the Vow. You may go free with my blessing."

Harry had thought more flame would appear, or that he would feel the tightness of the Vow around his throat and mouth lessening. Perhaps Draco would have to touch him with the wand and murmur a spell. Or there would be a sound like a bell ringing that signaled the magic had listened and was now free of the Vow.

There _was _a sound, one like glass snapping. But the power that slapped down into Harry's body from the released Vow was the important thing. He found himself flying backwards, hitting the couch and crumpling to the floor as his bones rang. Harry gasped, then cursed as the headache that had started up seemed to spread to every part of his body at once.

He tried to sit up, but was so dizzy that he simply fell back again. Draco's voice from above said, "Don't try to move right now, Harry. You won't be able to do it without pain for a while. That's the backlash. Releasing a Vow is never a small matter."

Harry gritted his teeth. He had felt backlash before, from some of the wards that he'd disrupted in his investigations, and it didn't feel like this. Pain sure, but _this _pain was rapidly changing into a restless, twitching energy that made his arms yearn to embrace something, his legs long to clasp something, and his mouth hot and dry with the wanting. He turned his head from side to side.

"Look, idiot." Draco's voice was coming closer. He had apparently knelt down above Harry. "You have to lie still. That's what my clear instructions _not to move right now _meant, and if you'd only listen—"

Harry forced his eyes open. Draco was kneeling above him, all right, face fuzzy and frowny with concern. Harry was glad. That meant he had an outlet for the energy. He lunged up to meet Draco, knowing that the pain would diminish if he could only get hold of him.

"Harry—" Draco said in an alarmed tone, but Harry was on top of him by now, bearing him backwards to the floor, and just as he had known would happen, the pain began to fade when he had skin beneath his hands.

Harry jammed a hand beneath Draco's head to keep his skull from hitting anything and kissed him. The kiss was a motion that began far down in his body and spiraled up through it. The pain was gone by now, but the energy wasn't.

And whether it was the memory of who else was in the room or just the intuition that one person wouldn't be enough to satisfy the energy, Harry reached out an impatient arm to Severus and beckoned him closer.

* * *

Severus had never seen such a reaction to the release of an Unbreakable Vow. He had known that the power would snap and probably give Harry a faint headache, but that it would throw someone straight across the room—

And then he remembered the tendency of the Vow's release to vary with the amount of personal emotion between the participants and the power of their magic, and cursed himself for a fool.

That unspoken emotion was taking its personal revenge, and emerging now.

It might have been ropes curling around Severus's legs and arse to drag him closer. Harry had beckoned for him, yes, but that alone could not explain the way his muscles trembled and the extreme hunger that boiled up his throat and fired his groin. He stumbled, he knelt, and then he was at Harry's side, bending down to take his mouth.

Harry, kissing both him and Draco at once, gasped aloud and flicked out his tongue so that Severus could taste it. Then he turned his head and bit at Draco's chin, while his fingers scratched the bottom of Severus's cheek. Severus caught one of his hands and pressed it close, kissing the back of it, then holding it prisoner while he began to pry Harry's clothes open.

"What—what's happening?" Draco gasped. He didn't look quite as caught up in this as the rest of them, with his eyes wide but not dazed and his mouth bright and pink and swollen. He kept looking back and forth between Harry and Severus as if he thought this was a dream from which he would wake up in a moment. He gulped, and the sound of the click was loud in the quiet room.

Severus leaned close to him and kissed him. Draco sighed and parted his lips to let Severus's tongue in. Severus lapped at his teeth and pulled back. "The Vow released magical energy," he said. It was hard to talk when he really wanted to be kissing and biting. "We could resist it, but it is easier to go along with it." He had an inspiration when Draco blinked doubtfully at him and nodded to Harry, on the floor. "Can you resist this, Draco?"

Draco looked down. Severus knew the moment when he saw the sight that Severus had wanted him to see, because he suddenly went still, and the only sound between them was his panting breath.

Harry had managed to pull off his shirt. He was gasping up at them, hair disordered by their hands and his shirt going over his head, his chest flushed such a rich color that it made Severus's compulsion to bite all the stronger. His eyes were heavy and heavy-lidded, and he reached out for them with urgent sounds that barely ascended into the audible range.

"No," Draco whispered, and lay down on top of Harry, fastening his teeth in Harry's throat. Severus had to climb over to the other side to find a place where he could touch both Harry and Draco at once, but he didn't think either of the others would complain about the final result.

Harry was moaning aloud now, and he held both of them as though he was greedy for more of their flesh, more and more and _more_. His hand hooked in the collar of Severus's robes and tugged demandingly. Severus had to shrug them off, and that left his shirt vulnerable to Draco's grasp as well as Harry's. Harry rolled to the side, half-unseating Draco, and took Severus's right nipple in his mouth.

It was good. It was more than good. Severus lost himself to the pleasure for a few seconds before Draco pressed against his back, and he became aware that _he _was still fully clothed. Severus turned his head and heard their teeth clack together as he and Draco kissed.

Harry pushed Severus to the floor in turn, and then straddled him and began to rock back and forth. His eyes were distant, his muscles jerking and spasming from the magical energy that hummed through them. His arse was close enough to Severus's groin to be tempting, but not close enough to produce the friction that he wanted.

"Wait, Harry, wait," Severus murmured, and Harry glanced down at him with those _eyes, _which made Severus suddenly aware of his erection, aching and lonely and unloved. But it would only satisfy one of them if Harry came in his pants early, so Severus caught his wrists and levered himself backwards. "Draco, would you help?"

Draco, who had shed his shirt and trousers when Severus wasn't watching, leaned in and kissed Harry hard enough to hurt. Harry sighed and locked his fingers around Draco's head, holding him in place so that he could feast on his neck when he got tired of snogging him. Draco gasped and began to whimper in the high, steady, needy way that told Severus he was close to coming.

_Funny_, Severus thought as he began efficiently to get rid of the last of his clothes, before he reached out to take Harry's trousers off in turn. _It's been years since I thought about the sounds that Draco makes during sex, but I haven't forgotten them._

Perhaps he thought he hadn't needed them, when he and Draco weren't having sex regularly and living as strangers in the same house. But his mind had known he would need them again someday, and had stored them.

Severus shook off such unhappy thoughts. The important thing at the moment was the sight of Draco's cock, bobbing in the air and jerking with pale drops at the tip as Severus was used to seeing it, and the fact that he couldn't see Harry's cock yet while he still wore those confining clothes.

Harry sighed when Severus lowered his pants, neck arching back as if this was a sensual gesture in itself. Well it might be, Severus thought as he ran his hand up Harry's hip and then urged him wordlessly to turn away from Draco so that both of them might have a good look. Harry's erection would be concealed against Draco's belly otherwise.

Harry was hard and long and thick, and warm when Severus dared to touch. He was also very red, purple in some places with the restrained blood. Severus caught an almost reverent expression on Draco's face, and wondered if it came from attraction to Harry or because this was the first strange cock he'd seen in six years.

Then he shook his head. That was an unworthy thing to think, and he had something better in mind. He leaned forwards and covered Harry's cock with his mouth.

The extremely satisfying buck and cry from above told him how much of a better idea it was. Severus smiled and kept his mouth working while Draco shuffled behind Harry.

* * *

Fast. It was moving so _fast_. Draco hadn't known that would happen. He had thought he and Harry would dance around each other for days yet, weeks, months, working out the terms of the bargain they had struck where Harry would let him do certain things to help pay back the life-debts and the debts that he'd accumulated.

But maybe it was better this way, Draco thought, as he reached out with trembling hands and pried apart the cheeks of Harry's arse. The dance would only be that, a dance, and they would still know what the destined end was. Now he had something better in mind.

_Not just in mind, _Draco thought. _Right in front of me. _A hysterical giggle slipped out, and he bit his lip to stop it.

Bowing his head, he scraped his tongue across the middle of Harry's back and felt around frantically for his wand with his free hand. There it was, the smoothness of the wood an odd contrast to the warmth of Harry's skin, and then Draco had it aimed and was pointing, and the spell burst out of it.

_Burst _was the appropriate word, Draco knew a moment later. He'd never cast a lubricant spell with quite that much enthusiasm or lack of direction. The spray of wetness and slickness coated Harry's arsehole, and his back, and the clenching cheeks of his arse, and Draco's hand, and Draco's chest.

Well. At least this meant he would have plenty of it when he took Harry, Draco thought. He paused, waiting for someone to wake him up from the dream and tell him this was wrong. Or maybe he should warn Harry, because Harry was probably so far gone from Severus sucking him that he didn't know what was happening.

In fact, Draco thought apprehensively, his doubts increasing, how did he know that Harry wanted this at all? They were just acting because of the strong energy from the release of the Unbreakable Vow. It was no different from being drunk. Harry would probably regret it later. It would—

"Draco, exactly _what _are you doing?" That was Harry's voice, not Severus's, and he sounded awake and aware and angry. "Are you going to fuck me or not?"

Draco swallowed. The word in Harry's voice made him faint. He reached down to Harry's entrance with his coated fingers, but did whisper into Harry's ear, "Are you sure you want this?"

Harry snorted and turned his head. His pupils were blown, but there was still much more coherency in his eyes than Draco would have expected from someone who was feeling that backlash of magic _and _getting a blowjob.

"I'm sure," Harry said fiercely. "I wouldn't have had the courage without the magic, but do you really think that any magic could overpower my delicate sensibilities and my anxieties if I wasn't sure? I want you. Now get it in me." He turned around and drove his arse further towards Draco, as though Draco might have lost track of it during their conversation.

Draco let the sweetness of the gulp of air he'd just swallowed burn all the way down his throat. Then he set about easing his fingers into Harry, while feeling the tremors that ran through him when Severus sucked and listening to the clenching of his muscles and his ecstatic cries.

Draco couldn't remember when he'd more looked forward to sex.

One finger, two fingers, and Harry didn't appear to notice anything out of the ordinary; he was entirely occupied with Severus's mouth on him and the way that he—as far as Draco could see—was desperately trying to keep his hands out of his hair. But he snapped his head around when Draco pulled the two fingers out and asked in a patient, if breathless, voice, "Were you planning to fuck me any time at all? Or were you just going to sit back there and admire the view?"

"It _is _admirable," Draco said, and then stopped talking, because his voice was embarrassing. He lined himself up, encouraging Harry to rock forwards and pausing to conjure pillows around Harry's knees that would help brace him. His hand was shaking so much that he very nearly turned Harry's knees _into _pillows. Luckily, Harry was too occupied to notice.

Then Draco was in the right place, and then he was in position, and then he was _inside_.

_Brilliance._

The brilliance was the warmth surrounding him, and the choked gasp that warbled out of Draco's throat, and the starflakes bursting behind his eyes. He let his head sag forwards, resting against Harry's back as he gulped air and shifted his hips to make sure he was all the way in. He would need more strength to move than he currently possessed.

* * *

Harry knew it would hurt. And it did. Draco wasn't small, and had stretched him but probably not enough, and the lubrication was helpful but couldn't solve all their problems. Even the way that Severus's tongue traveled soothingly up and down his cock, pausing to give a series of complicated lashes at the head, wasn't enough.

But the sensations. The sensations!

Harry was assaulted by newness on every side, and it was so good that he kept whimpering in contentment. The wetness around his cock really wasn't much different from a woman's mouth, he supposed, but it _felt _different. And now he knew what it was like to be full, and he reckoned that he would want it again as soon as possible.

He couldn't believe the position that he was in, crouched on his heels—which were starting to shake—and the angle that Severus had to bend his head at. But if Severus and Draco weren't protesting, then Harry thought it would be all right.

He pressed backwards, and Draco took that for the invitation it was and slowly started to fuck him. At the same time, Severus suddenly clamped down with cheeks and tongue and a hint of teeth and _sucked_.

Harry shrieked and came, blasting Severus's mouth with a burst of seed that he felt rather sheepish about later. But there was lightning in his brain at the moment, and more lightning striking up through his arse as Draco hit something, and everything was good and dancing in time and _wonderful_. Harry cried out again when he was done coming, just a faint sound, but one that he trusted showed how marvelous he felt.

Draco seemed to understand. He pushed Harry forwards some more, so that he was on hands and knees, and started to fuck him in earnest. Harry braced his arms to take it, panting and wondering if it would always be like this between them.

A strong hand touched his cheek. Harry blinked and looked up, half of his own free will and half following the tug on his chin.

"Now," Severus said, his deep voice glorious and his eyes so direct it was impossible to escape them, "you are going to return the favor." He stepped to the side and braced himself as if he thought he needed to show off.

_No need for that, _Harry thought. For the first time in his life, another man's cock was making his mouth water. He leaned in, making eye contact with Severus so that he would know this was all right, and put his mouth to work.

Severus shuddered and locked his muscles in place as though the floor itself was fighting him, his head and hair spilling back. Harry paid almost more attention to the way Severus's chest and neck looked than to the way his tongue moved, at least until Severus winced.

Harry soothed him with a few more licks and carefully moved his jaw to the side so that he could try a new angle. Severus made the most dangerous and disturbing sound, a purr, a growl, and a groan, and Harry was heartened and tried a few swallows.

Then Draco jabbed deep enough to hit the thing in his arse again, whatever it was, and Harry yelped around Severus.

That seemed to be all that Severus needed to come.

Harry gagged and choked and gulped and gasped, and somehow got through it, though most of Severus's spunk seemed to drip down his chin. Draco shuddered as if Harry's failure to swallow what he should have was a turn-on, and pushed himself forwards far enough that his balls were pressed against Harry's arse when he orgasmed.

Harry swallowed again and then looked up at Severus, wondering if he would be angry that Harry was so messy. This was his first time with another man—other men—but he didn't know if Severus realized that.

Severus looked so smug that Harry at once dismissed the notion of his being angry, but he was still a bit uncertain until Severus bent down and kissed him, softly, but with growing passion. Harry moaned and kissed back.

Then Draco pulled himself out of Harry with a squelch and crawled around to join them, so it was a mixture of three tongues and three mouths and innumerable teeth. If Draco objected to the taste of Severus on Harry's breath, he didn't say so.

_This was begun by the Unbreakable Vow, maybe, _Harry thought hazily, _but this is us. This is what it can be like._


	21. Shine and Stand

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of _Love, Free as Air. _I hope that you've enjoyed it.

_Chapter Twenty-One—Shine and Stand_

"I expected someone like this."

Harry tried not to feel irritated when Hermione reached out to take Severus's hand. He _knew _how smart she was, which was why he had wanted her to work this case in the first place. Wanting her to act as if she wasn't as smart now, wanting her to be surprised, was irrational.

Besides, Ron was surprised enough for the both of them.

When Harry came through the door of Number Twelve with Draco and Severus behind him, Ron had been sitting at the table paring an apple. He had put the fruit and the knife both down and prepared to look tolerant, or so Harry thought, from the brief glimpse he'd had of his face before Ron had spotted Severus. Then he had turned so red that he looked in danger of choking, clasped both hands in his lap, stared, and then whirled on Harry and pointed one finger.

"You _said_," he said, but the choking cut him off then, and he drummed one hand on the tabletop and glared at Harry.

"Don't mind my husband," Hermione said, exchanging the kind of glance with Severus that Harry had imagined she would exchange. It said they were both large-minded people of the world and knew how to ignore someone else's unfortunate _faux pas. _She took a larger sheaf of parchment out of her satchel. "He's just trying to deal with the fact that it seems we have two of Harry's lovers to meet today, rather than one. That's the case, isn't it?"

Harry got his gratification after all, given the way that Hermione's eyes darted up and then fell back. She wasn't sure, not completely. She might have foreseen someone like Severus, but not exactly Severus, and not his position in Harry's life.

"Yes, it is." Severus was the one who said it, and he looked half-surprised at himself. But he had had his chance to step back before they came here. Harry had asked if he was sure that he wanted Harry's friends to know they were lovers. He had faced prejudice in the past, but he had lived as he liked for six years, and it was asking a lot for him to put up with the anger of two Gryffindors he'd last known as students.

But Severus had said that he wanted it to be known, and locked his arm on Harry's shoulders in the next instant, as if he suspected that Harry would dash off to one of a thousand other possible lovers (who only existed in Severus's head) if he got a chance. Harry had leaned in and given him a kiss on the cheek, which had quieted him through sheer surprise.

"I see," Hermione said. She didn't show uneasiness or distaste, the way Harry had almost thought she might. She put her sheaf of papers down on the table; it seemed that she had lost something and needed a flat surface to find it.

"_Snape_?" Ron finally struck in. The piece of apple appeared to have gone down his throat, and now he was staring back and forth between them as if he thought that Draco and Severus would have agreed to play a joke on him. "I didn't—mate, when you left here, you didn't have even one lover, and now you have two? Both _blokes_?"

Harry turned to his best friend and smiled innocently. He loved Ron, but this was Harry's chance at revenge for all that nagging about how he should try dating a man, and there was no way he'd pass it up. "Well, yes. When I took your advice, didn't you think I'd take it literally and make the most of it?"

Ron shook his head, and kept on shaking it. Harry sniggered and turned to Hermione. "Do you think we'll be able to get Severus retried?" he asked. "His trial probably won't have as much documentation of problems as Mrs. Malfoy's, and it will rouse more opposition than Draco's did."

Hermione shook her head briskly. She had what looked like a folder in her hands, and she had flipped through it to reach a certain page. "Look at this," she said, finger stabbing the center of it before she held it out to him.

Harry took it, and then frowned. There was a photograph of an older man in the middle, but Harry didn't know him. The man had a thick, rusty brown beard, and he kept looking at the viewer, scowling, and trying to duck out of the frame. "Who is he?"

"Quintus Buskin," Hermione said in satisfaction. "He was on the Wizengamot at the time of the Death Eater trials, and he undertook to 'manage' the paperwork and the witnesses for most of them. He didn't do Lucius Malfoy's, oddly enough, perhaps because he thought there was enough evidence to convict him. Sorry, Malfoy," she added.

Harry could hear Draco's teeth grinding, but what Draco said aloud was, "My father made some extraordinarily poor choices. I know that, and I can live with the results."

"How gracious of you," Ron said.

Draco rolled his eyes. Harry reached out and put a hand on his arm to let him know that his tolerance was appreciated. Ron was still sensitive about what Lucius Malfoy had tried to do to Ginny, and Harry couldn't blame him.

"Anyway," Hermione said, "Buskin suborned witnesses for a number of trials, or at least the paperwork indicates that. He also whipped up hysteria against Death Eaters by writing a number of anonymous articles that appeared in the _Prophet_. Not all his activities were illegal, but enough that we can argue for a mistrial on any number of cases."

Her eyes were aglow. Harry smiled back at her. He would much rather that Hermione enjoy what she was doing—something he'd had to ask of her as a huge favor—after all, rather than resent the work involved.

"How can you tell that he wrote the articles if they're anonymous?" Draco demanded.

"His writing style is distinctive," Hermione said. "All I had to do was look at the records, and I saw the same phrases and exaggerated metaphors appearing." She snorted. "Whoever taught him to write essays should also have taught him to curb his excesses."

"I believe that he was in Slytherin, long ago," Severus said, voice uninterested. Harry thought that only he and Draco knew that tone hid a waste of pain and fury. "During a time in our history, if my estimate of his age is correct, when the Head of House was a cringing, apologetic man more interested in winning absolution for the supposed part of Slytherin House in Gellert Grindelwald's crimes than in teaching good writers."

Harry pressed back against Severus, and saw Ron watching them with wonder in his eyes. Harry looked challengingly at him, and Ron rolled his eyes and waved a hand in blessing, as much to say, _Fine, I approve, but I think it's bloody weird._

"He was possibly trying to distance himself from what he saw as Slytherin House's crimes," Hermione said, but in the tone that Harry knew meant it was an observation, not an excuse. She was already rustling the papers again, looking satisfied. "I know that he wrote an article that claimed all the evidence left in Dumbledore's Pensieve about your heroism was a lie, sir. We should be able to show that it influenced public opinion enough that the Wizengamot has no choice but a retrial."

Severus relaxed for some reason. He'd been studying Hermione, Harry thought, and whatever he saw must have satisfied him at last. "Very well, Miss Granger," he said. "Or should it be Mrs. Granger-Weasley?"

Hermione had already drifted off into a realm of paperwork and was lost. Severus stepped forwards to consult with her. Draco called for Kreacher, and he appeared with a beam and a bow. Draco started to order food. Harry eased around him so that he could talk to Ron.

Ron poked him in the chest with one finger. "Was there a _reason _that you didn't mention this, mate?"

"I was under an Unbreakable Vow not to," Harry said simply. "Severus didn't trust that I wouldn't betray him at first."

"And now," Ron said, but didn't finish the sentence. He looked over at Severus instead. Harry looked with him, burning with deep contentment at the sight of Severus's head against the light from the kitchen window. Ron took a deep breath and valiantly tackled the sentence again. "And now, do you…he trusts you enough?"

"He does," Harry said. He leaned sideways against Draco, who with him had wrought this miracle. Draco stroked his hair. He was looking stunned, Harry saw. Well, he didn't think Draco had counted on the possibility of another trial for Severus becoming a reality.

Or one for his mother, either.

Harry took Draco's hand and squeezed. Draco clung on as if he needed the anchorage to avoid drowning.

* * *

"Hello, Mother."

His mother didn't reply for long moments. She had looked up when the door into the cell opened, but her face had the sort of patient expression that said she knew this was a trick. Draco didn't think her eyes had even rested on him before she was turning away.

Now she tensed. Draco waited, lingering by the door as much to give himself time to absorb the white streaks in her hair and the broken way her shoulders hunched as to give her time to absorb his presence.

"Draco?" she whispered at last. "Son?" Her voice struck nerves he didn't know he had and made choruses of guilt ring through his head. For the first time, Draco thought he could understand how Harry felt when he hurt someone else. He should have been _here_, he thought, by her side, not spending time in the cottage with Severus, or time in Grimmauld Place with Harry, or time in whatever house with both of them.

But he also knew that no concerns about his parents had delayed him when he freed Severus and they escaped together. He should have done something differently, perhaps, but he didn't think he could have freed his mother. He would have ended up in the cell beside her, suffering without being able to comfort her.

_You have the possibility to free her now, _Draco told himself fiercely as he knelt down in front of her and reached for her hands. _Remember that. _

"Yes, Mother," he said. "It's me." He hoped that his voice showed the love he felt thrumming through him, more than the guilt.

Narcissa lifted her head again. Draco's heart gave a painful thump. She had wrinkles around her mouth, which he had heard her say more than once she would rather die than suffer, and her hands trembled where she clung to him. But then she opened her arms, and Draco crawled into her embrace, and he discovered that some of her old strength remained.

"Are you here to join me?" she whispered.

Draco understood the source of some of her dread then. What must she think, if he suddenly appeared in her cell and the door shut behind him? She wouldn't think that he had the power to command the guard to open the door again at any moment and depart.

He _wished _he could leave with her at his side, drawing her up and out of the darkness and the dreariness here. But Granger was working on that. And Draco knew that his mother—at least his mother as he remembered her—would have forbidden him to ask for more than anyone could do right now and risk shattering this fragile, precious chance at freedom.

"No," he whispered back. "I'm free. Harry Potter was instrumental in granting me a retrial, and we're going to do the same for you."

She was once again still, and then she began to shake. Draco could feel the wetness on his neck. He pretended that he couldn't. He stroked her back and murmured the story of his retrial and return to the wizarding world to her in a voice so soft that she probably couldn't make out half the details even if she was listening.

"Your father?" she asked, when she was done and had drawn back to show him her tear-bright, shining blue eyes.

Draco shook his head. "The evidence against him was too damning," he said. His mother had raised a commanding eyebrow, and Draco knew that she required more information than that as to _why _Lucius couldn't be freed. "Granger doesn't want to try. She'll get you free if she can, and Severus. She can prove that there were errors in your trials. But the one who tried to condemn you refrained on Father's trial. I don't think we can…" He let his voice trail off in the face of his mother's determined expression.

"We will try," was all she said, and then she smiled at him and kissed his cheek. "I'm glad that you were never here, darling. There are some experiences that you don't need to have."

Draco stared hard into her face, trying to decide if this was a half-lie to make him feel better, but she was doing it well, if so. She looked at him with a calm expression. Draco sighed and shook his head.

"Will you be able to bear being here?" he asked. "Now that you know there's a hope, the time here might pass even more slowly." He didn't say what would happen if the retrial didn't come off. He had the odd feeling that even discussing that circumstance would lead to Granger losing her argument.

"You've offered me a chance for the nightmare to end," Narcissa said simply. "And if it doesn't, at least you'll come to visit me sometimes, and bring the light and breezes of a world outside with you."

She'd had the courage to talk about what he couldn't. A bit humbled, Draco kissed her cheek and left.

* * *

"Yes, I know that you don't like to consider that one of your members could have encouraged you to vote against your consciences." Granger's voice was piercing and clear, and no one in the room could pretend that they didn't hear her. She was, of course, Severus thought, offering them a way out, pretending to believe that they had voted against their inclinations only because of Buskin, and in return they would accept that proffered branch and vote differently this time.

Severus had not believed her at first, when she had asserted that they were jumpy after Draco's retrial and would snatch at any chance to make themselves look better, but he was beginning to believe it.

Some of the Wizengamot could hardly look at Granger. Nor could they study Harry, who stood beside Severus's chair in a glow of righteousness. Some of them focused on Draco, who was behind his mother, or Narcissa herself, a ghostly vision in the chair she'd been afforded. But there was no hatred in their faces, Severus thought. There was the terror of being found out, instead. Most of them must have suspected something wrong at the time, though it would have been political suicide to speak out.

And now Granger had whipped the papers and the public up into such a frenzy that it might be political suicide to resentence Narcissa. And even him.

Severus had woken that morning to find, on the front page of the _Prophet, _an interview with Harry and Granger where they both said that they knew and understood Severus's actions in the war. On a second page was another interview with Harry where he detailed the way that Narcissa had saved his life. On the third page, an anonymous article that Severus vaguely recognized the style of—it had to have been one of his students at Hogwarts, though he doubted it was Granger herself—asked indignantly when the Wizengamot had stopped being a stronghold of justice, and decided that it was the day Albus Dumbledore had died. On the fourth page was an article by Rita Skeeter in which she discussed the way Wizengamot members had Apparated away when they saw her coming.

It was all true, or at least no more misinformed than the usual opinions that the _Prophet _printed. But now the tide had turned and was flowing in Severus's direction.

He still felt dazed. He wasn't used to this.

Harry abruptly leaned an elbow on his shoulder, and Severus came out of his daze enough to listen to the words being whispered in his ear. "They're going to ask you to speak now," Harry warned. "We thought they might. You have to tell the truth, Severus, please, no matter how it hurts. That's the footing we fought to get this trial conducted on. Don't let—don't let pride stand in the way, please."

Severus gave him the most freezing stare he could muster. "If I was intent on doing that, would I be here?"

Harry gave him a fearless glance. Severus did not know whether to be pleased or irritated that Harry did not cower before him anymore. Perhaps he would be more pleased in another situation. "I know that you sometimes _involuntarily _let pride get in the way," he said. "I'm only asking that you not do that."

Severus barely had time to clear his expression of shock—he had not realized that Harry might know that was happening, and yet not blame him for it—before an arthritic voice from the Wizengamot asked him to stand and justify his plea.

It had been six years since Severus was on trial in any way. He had hidden away from judging eyes in the cottage, and only now did he realize how very easy that had been. He had thought it the harder choice, because of what would happen to him if he was recaptured, but no one had seemed interested in looking for him. Only Draco had cared if he lived or died. Yes, he had had it easier than he knew.

The tremors wanted to strike his body now as he stood there. What evidence did he have that would make them believe him, if they had rejected Albus's Pensieve the first time around?

He glanced sideways, and found Harry gazing at him with that same fearless look. Draco watched him with burning eyes. And Granger had turned around and extended her hand in invitation.

Their faith was his evidence.

Severus stepped forwards.

* * *

Harry had realized that it wasn't Severus's words that would convince the Wizengamot; it was his manner. They were already running frightened from Hermione's accusations, ready and willing to be persuaded, but with the residue of the prejudice that had led them to condemn Severus in the first place still in the back of their minds. A commanding enough way with words, a stern tone, a strict look, would keep them on track. But they could turn and stampede the other way again if the case wasn't convincing enough.

Luckily, Severus had never had any trouble with those mannerisms.

He started his speech by surveying the Wizengamot with a single quick, impersonal gaze. Harry marked the ones who trembled and shrank in their seats—the majority. For obvious reasons, Buskin hadn't been allowed to sit in on this retrial, and most of the people who remained seemed to be the easily led ones. Harry had never thought he would feel more confident because the government of the wizarding world essentially needed a sheepdog, but he could see the benefits now.

"I am a hero."

From the moment that Severus claimed the title, in a flat tone that dared them to disagree, there was never really any doubt. Harry watched, and admired, as he chased their feeble protests into a corner and murdered them. He reinterpreted the evidence in the Pensieve, showed the memories in a new light, and retold the story of how he had faced Voldemort and nearly died when Voldemort thought he was murdering the master of the Elder Wand. He used short, sparse sentences, but the war filled the chamber in a way that it couldn't have in years, Harry thought. The Wizengamot was looking faint when he finished. Some of them had actually fainted.

When Severus sat down again, Harry wished he could kiss him, in appreciation and thanks for letting him witness such an effective display. He settled for squeezing his shoulder instead. Severus didn't wince, but inclined his head regally.

Hermione swooped in after him, reminding the Wizengamot of the clear paper trail (well, clear to someone who was looking for it and had Hermione's eager eyes and questioning mind) that said the evidence had been manipulated in Mrs. Malfoy's trial to give her the worst showing possible. Harry was asked to tell the story of her saving his life again, and did so. He felt her eyes on his back while he did it.

Well, let her look. She might wonder why he was standing up for her; Harry had no idea whether Draco had told her that they were lovers yet. But Harry _was _going to fight for her, and fuck all the people who might have said he shouldn't.

He stepped back and sat down, and the Wizengamot rose to go out of the room and make their decision in private. Some of them glared at Hermione. She beamed back at them.

Draco leaned forwards. "You know that you've made enemies, right?" he whispered.

Hermione shrugged. In her eyes danced that light Harry knew so well, the light of courage and integrity—and sheer challenge. She would love having enemies who had opposed her on a matter that she thought should have been set right from the beginning, and would have been had anyone on the Wizengamot had a tenth of her intelligence and morals. "What does that matter? Everyone does. I'll fight them, and they'll fight me, but I'll guard my back better. And they'll take the trials more seriously, and not tamper with the evidence as much. They'll have to, in self-defense, or every Death Eater trial will eventually be appealed. I'm not worried about what I'll make them into."

Harry choked. He reckoned it was a good thing that Hermione had chosen Gryffindor and not Ravenclaw after all; he could envision her becoming drunk on power if she thought the whole thing was just an academic exercise, instead of dealing with real people's lives.

And a Hermione drunk on power could probably take over the wizarding world.

* * *

When the Wizengamot came back into the room, Draco didn't know how to read their faces. He knew Granger did, but he couldn't look at her for reassurance, or even down at his mother to try and give her support. His eyes were chained to the Wizengamot members by some strange power of attraction. He held his breath.

The leader rose to her feet and cleared her throat. "Yes, well," she said. "We find that the trials of both Narcissa Malfoy and Severus Snape had problems included in the evidence. They are now free to go, unless they again do something criminal or illegal." She gave Severus a dark stare that said he had better not follow any more Dark Lords.

Draco didn't care. He turned and embraced his mother, who had managed to stand up from her chair but then had fallen forwards. Draco didn't care. He whirled in the center of the room with her, and laughed, and didn't care who watched them and turned aside with a lip curled up in disgust or scorn.

Then Harry crashed into him, and Severus, and they were all three—four, if one counted his mother in the center—whirling in a celebratory tangle of limbs, while Granger conducted her own private war dance around them.

In the excitement of the moment, it was only natural that Draco should kiss Severus, and Harry should lean over and kiss both of them.

Skeeter was in the courtroom, of course. A flash of a camera, and the next day's _Prophet _front page carried a story that knocked the news of the retrials to a back page.

At the moment, Draco couldn't care, didn't care, was carefree at last. He wouldn't care much more later, either. He put one arm out to Harry, who, hanging on to Severus, took it, and held the other out to his mother to escort her.

It was time to go and see the world they had conquered.

**The End.**


End file.
